


Samuel Winchester and the Death of Azazel the Deathless

by ninhursag



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, M/M, separated as children au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-22
Updated: 2010-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-06 13:56:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester has hunted ghosts and creepy crawlies since he was a kid. It's been a crazy life but his Dad's been with him-- more or less-- and he could have lived with that. Until an encounter with a strange old woman leads him to a monster worse than anything he's ever had to deal with before. A monster's that's wrapped up with a shaggy haired stranger he wants more than anyone he's ever seen since he figured out what sex was for. Assuming he doesn't fuck it up, Dean's whole life may be taking a turn for the awesome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Samuel Winchester and the Death of Azazel the Deathless

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to everyone who was kind and encouraging on this one. This story was a very long time in the making, one way or another. A huge thank you to [](http://giandujakiss.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**giandujakiss**](http://giandujakiss.dreamwidth.org/) for the beta. If I had listened to more of her advice this story would have been even better ♥.

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[big bang 09](http://ninhursag.dreamwidth.org/tag/big+bang+09), [fic](http://ninhursag.dreamwidth.org/tag/fic), [supernatural](http://ninhursag.dreamwidth.org/tag/supernatural)  
  
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A (very loose) retelling of Marya Morevna and the Death of Koschei the Deathless (with lots more incest)

 

Zhili-Bwili…

Dean Winchester was a hunter and a damned good one. He loved his dad, he loved killing evil things and saving people and as much as anything, that was what made him happy. Word was that once he had a mom and a baby brother, but once might as well have been once upon a time in a far away country. It was nothing Dean remembered.

It might have gone like that for the rest of his life, but of course it didn't. That wouldn't have been much of a story.

For Dean everything changed on the tail end of a hunt, just as he was nailing some son-of-a-bitch spirit that thought it was fun to go after old ladies. Nailing the fucker to the ground and burning what was left of it to ash and whispers right in front of its would be victims.

The last old lady still on her feet-- small and wrinkled and smelling like grass and institutional cooking, nose as long as a witch in a story book-- she got him by the arm a second after he let the match drop on the bones.

"You okay?" Dean asked, and tried not to stiffen up too bad. He didn't like being grabbed by strangers, but how could you get mad at somebody's grandma? Especially a grandma who'd made it out of an encounter with a deadly spirit on her feet and fighting.

"Fine, boy," Grandma said. She had a really good grip for someone who looked about a hundred. When she smiled her teeth where all there, but yellowed, like an old photograph. "You're a good boy, aren't you, Dean Winchester? You saved us all and no one had to ask you to."

"Uh," Dean said. "You're welcome?" The hunt adrenaline was still pumping through him, making it hard to think straight. His mouth hung open when he finished.

Grandma's fingers dug into Dean's elbow, harder than anyone that old should have been able to do. There'd be bruises for sure. "Good boys get rewarded. Keep your eyes open and maybe there's something waiting for you to find, something just for yourself. Something you'll like-- assuming you don't screw it up."

Dean blinked. "Did you get hit on the head, ma'am? Cause I have no idea what you're talking about," he demanded. Grandma laughed, a cackle that fit right in with her face.

"Could be that you're better off not knowing what's coming," she said. She smirked and showed off her teeth again. They were pointer than they should be, like she'd filed them or something. It gave Dean the shudders. "Boys who ask too many questions, boys who know too much, they get old before their time."

"Why, did that happen to you?" Dean blurted out before he did anything like think it through. "You're the oldest person I've ever seen." He expected to get hit by a cane for saying that, but she just laughed harder. Maybe it was because she didn't have a cane.

"I like you, Dean Winchester. You enjoy what you have coming, you deserve it. Just remember-- listen to what people tell you, it's for your own good. And don't mess it up. But if you do mess up, well, come to Grandma. I'll owe you a favor."

"Ooo-kay," Dean muttered and took a step back. She followed him, and bam, just like that, reached out to grab him again before he got the chance to flinch.

Grandma's fingers felt cool and soft, loose and weather skin on Dean's forehead. "Even without me on your side, you're not without blessings," she said. For a half second she sounded almost gentle. "That will help you."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Dean admitted with a shrug. But between blinks he was hit with an image, a faded memory. So hazy it might not be real at all, of being really little, his mom's lips pressed against his forehead.

_I've got you, Dean_, she told him. Her hair felt warm and soft, tickling his cheeks. _Nothing's going to happen to you, not while I'm around._ He blinked the memory away. It wasn't like she was around, not anymore.

The old lady just cackled another laugh at him. "Liar," she said. "Remember. Don't fuck up, Dean."

It was only afterwards, when he was back in his car and getting the fuck away from Granville Assisted Living Facility, that it occurred to Dean that he'd never actually told her his name and it was majorly weird she knew it. He thought about turning the car around, but something about the way she'd laughed-- fuck it, he wasn't scared of old ladies, but that was one creepy broad.

Before Dean had given turning back around much thought, never mind made a decision, his phone rang with his Dad's ringtone and that knocked the worry right out of his head. He probably had told her his name, he must have done it.

"Dean," his Dad said and Dean smiled, like they were in the same room. Nothing like hearing from Dad and knowing he was all right, or at least all right enough to check in, to settle Dean's stomach when things were weird.

"Hey, Dad," Dean answered. "Your hunt go down good?"

Dean could almost see Dad nodding in his head, the way he always did. He missed seeing it face to face, but he didn't know how to say so. "Not too bad, kiddo. You?"

"Yeah. All right." Fucking weird as hell Grandma aside. "We going to meet up soon?" He tried to sound neutral, not like he was hoping for anything.

"Not yet. Maybe, soon... but just listen." There was a long pause, like Dad was trying to find the words. "I have a job for you and it could be a complicated one. You'll have to be careful."

"I was born careful." Dean let out a breath and nodded, as if Dad could see him buck up. "Where am I headed?"

"There's something in upstate New York," Dad said, firm and all straight ahead business now that he knew Dean was listening to every word. "It's going after street kids. Sources in town say it's got to be our kind of thing, but there's not enough information on the ground to tell us what, not yet. Just bodies."

Dean sighed. Kids were always the worst. Street kids... no families looking after them, that was too damned much. "Where exactly am I headed?" Then he shut his mouth and listened for a while before checking the map and turning the car around at the next intersection. It was at least half a day's drive to where he was going.

Binghamton, New York looked like it might have been a really nice little city, maybe fifty years ago. Full of large, sprawling Victorians and a compressed downtown. These days, though, too many of those Victorians were boarded up and the office and commercial space was full of gaping dark spots.

The first thing Dean did was a quick check of the local papers. That gave him enough to make it worth his while to pull out a fake badge that identified him as a detective from Syracuse-- an hour away from home and with a similar case he was trying to close. Armed that way it was easy enough to smile and flirt with the secretary at the local police station. She leaned over like she was telling secrets and told him that there had only been a few bodies actually found, but lots of the missing.

"We don't usually know, with the street kids," she said and pursed her lips. "They mostly drift. But losing those kinds of numbers, especially in the summer? It's weird. You'll want to talk to Detective Brown to see if there are similarities with your missing persons."

A bartender in a local club gave Dean a name and a place to look. He was a good guy and his place had once suffered an infestation of ghosts re-fighting the Temperance movement until Dad cleared them out three years ago so he knew enough to believe.

"A new kid is getting everyone excited," he said. "Really tall. Cute. Southern accent. Drifted into town about the same time the disappearances started. Calls himself Campbell. Sam Campbell but I doubt that's his real name." He'd leaned in to whisper in Dean's ear, like someone might hear him if he spoke too loud. "The word is, he's got a magic knife that'll kill anything. That's how he took over things so fast."

Dean blinked. "A magic knife, really? You think he's the reason people have been going missing?"

The bartender shrugged, spiky blue hair swaying with the motion. "Could be, dude. The crazy magic and monsters shit is your bag, so you'd know better. I dunno, though. The local kids think he's some kind of hero, the ones that believe in monsters anyway. With so many turning up dead, I'd bet most of 'em believe now."

"Where do they say he got his knife from anyway?" Dean asked, curious despite himself. There were scattered rumors about weapons that could take down the supernatural, but he'd always been a rocksalt and silver bullets guy himself.

The bartender waved his hand dismissively. "I dunno, man. I mean... ghosts, I get, you know? I have to, I've seen them, seen your dad take them down. But this story, the things I've been hearing? Eh."

"What is it?" Dean leaned forward, hand on his palm.

The man grinned and shook his head. "Okay, but you asked. The word is a demon fell in love with him and gave it to him as a token of her affection. Or his affection, depending on who's telling it. Apparently demons are pretty gender neutral."

Dean whistled despite himself. "A demon? Seriously, man? I mean, seriously, seriously?"

"Told you it was crazy," the man said and laughed it off, wrinkling his nose. "I mean, come on, demons?"

Dean closed his eyes. "Well," he said after a pause. "There are such a thing-- as demons, I mean. I know guys that have seen them. They ain't exactly common, though." Then again, neither where knives that killed anything.

\

Dean only had the beginning of an idea of what he was looking for and where to start, at least right up until he saw Sam, the kid with the rumors swirling around his head, take down a demon in a knife fight. Hard and dirty, before there was a sharp twist of light and then black smoke that shone and sputtered out and was gone.

He hadn't even been looking that hard for Sam yet, he was just following a whispered rumor about a new gang that had half of the city freaked out and looking to be somewhere they weren't.

There was a crowd of ragged kids in their punk rock best-- shoulder to shoulder, blocking off the mouth of the alley. Dean could pick out the whispers and taunts well enough to know there was a fight on.

"What's going on?" he asked, tapping one of the kids closest to him on the shoulder.

"Sam's fighting." The kid had messy hair and a toothy smirk. "Sam Campbell. He's kicking ass. He always wins."

"Who's he fighting?" Dean asked, but he didn't really even have to. What's he fighting, that was more like it. Every rumor Dean had heard about Sam told him that he fought a lot more than human gang kids.

The kid just raised an eyebrow and took in Dean's leather and denim gear and young face. He could have passed for a slightly cleaner, better kept one of them. "You mean, what's he fighting, right?"

Dean didn't wait after that, he muscled past the kid, past the rest of the circle of twitching, grinning boys, into the trash strewn alley, and that was where he saw Sam Campbell for the first time, saw him fight like he was born to it. Sam was moving too fast for him to see much, just the impression of long, bony arms and legs up to his arm pits and hair covering his face. A knife, steel flashing in the dim light. It may have been the most awesome thing Dean had ever seen, better than a movie, sharper, real.

Dean was a firm believer in lust at first sight and seeing Sam move was like the holy writ.

Whoever Sam was fighting was even blurrier, fast and muddy around the edges. At first all Dean saw was the impression of smoke and shining black eyes. Dean was no expert, not on this kind of crazy shit, but he knew a demon when he saw one, bound up in the ruined flesh of a stolen body and laughing.

It lunged for Sam, bright sparks visible from it's fingertips, like it was wearing files attached to the nails. The hands left bleeding marks, oozing from Sam's skin and making him stumble.

"Hey!" Dean shouted, even though he had no clue what he was going to do to stop a fucking demon with nothing but a handgun with ordinary bullets in grabbing distance. "Hey ugly! Look over here!"

It looked. Its eyes were empty and huge, like they'd swallowed the face of the body it was wearing. It smirked at him. "Dean Winchester," it mumbled, a pleased, gurgling sound from a ruined throat. "Good to see you."

Dean pushed forward, shoving himself off the wall, ready to throw himself between the boy and the monster if shooting it didn't work, but Sam was faster, moving up at that thing from behind like he wasn't hurt at all. His knife flashed once, twice and a dull, electric twinge surged through the air, making Dean jump.

Sam whispered something low and rumbling and the demon didn't even scream, it just jerked hard and a dull light flickered and went out behind the eyes of the body it was wearing. The thing crumbled into a heap of pale, broken limbs like it had been dead for a long, long time.

A cheer went up from the crowd of kids. "Campbell!" they yelled, ragged and wild. Sam didn't seem to notice, he just knelt down by the body and lay his hand across it's face, pressing the eyelids down. Dean stood stock still, just watching, like he'd never seen someone end a fight like that before. Yeah, lust at first sight, hallelujah, praise the lord.

He couldn't have described it any other way, the tightening in his stomach. It was a little like clocking the hottest girl in the bar and knowing she was going to be the one and a little like the bare beginning of a hunt, when things were just starting to arrange themselves into a pattern that made sense.

Then Sam looked up from where he knelt and that was when Dean noticed he was right up next to him, closer than he'd realized he'd gotten. Sam's eyes were a muted hazel and his expression was tight, solemn, until his gaze met Dean's. Then there was a flicker of something else, like maybe Sam had clocked him right back and Sam pushed himself up to his feet and smiled from under messy, sweaty hair. A shock of bright white teeth and dimples that made him look younger, too young to have just taken down a demon with a knife. Too young to be... whatever he was.

"Hey," Sam said. He had a faint drawl to his accent, like he'd spent a few years in Texas before washing up in New York. "Thanks, man, for distracting it. You were a real life saver." He frowned, faint and thoughtful. "I-- I don't know you, do I?"

Dean shrugged. "I doubt it. I'm Dean." He offered his hand and Sam took it with his free one, the one that didn't hold a blade. Sam's grip was tight, his palms and fingers calloused enough that Dean would have pegged him as a knife fighter even if he hadn't just seen what he'd done with one.

"Hey, Dean," Sam repeated, easy, his smile still wide. "I'm Sam. What brings you to this particular hell hole to see me? You think it up on your own or did someone send you?"

Dean opened his mouth to say that he wasn't exactly here to see Sam, thank you very much and that it was no one's business anyway. The words didn't come out right, because suddenly all he could remember was crazy old Grandma and her sharp toothed smile telling him something was waiting for him. Something good.

"No one needed to send me, I can go where I want. I heard you guys had yourself a--" he scrambled around for the words to describe a monster, but then, fuck, he'd just watched this guy take down a demon. He'd believe him. "An infestation or something. That it was killing kids."

Sam tilted his head, peering at Dean. He took a step back and knelt down, cleaning his knife on the scraps of the demon host's shirt. "There is. And what? You thought a-- what, infestation, would make a cool tourist attraction?" he asked, his broad back to Dean. "Even better than America's largest ball of twine? Who are you?"

"Dude," Dean protested. "No. I'm a-- I guess you'd call me a hunter. It's my job to stop things like that. Save people."

Sam's shoulders stiffened and Dean half expected him to yell or lash out, but when he turned around there was something else in his expression. "Save people, huh? Well, I-- you're _sure_ I don't know you from somewhere?" Sam asked softly and bit down on his soft looking lower lip. Kid had a great mouth and Dean and stupid as it was, that was all Dean really found himself noticing. Pink and sweet, and more interesting than anything else around them.

Like the demon corpse courting rigor on the concrete, or the ring of kids still milling around them, whispering excitedly, were nothing much at all, just more background static when he could be thinking about Sam. The really scary thing was, Dean couldn't even remember why that was supposed to bother him.

"Pretty sure," Dean admitted. "I think I'd remember you, Sam." He took a step toward Sam and Sam didn't back away. Instead he smiled, slow and sweet and sheathed his knife with one easy motion.

"Well, why don't you stick around and get to know me? Maybe after that we can talk about how you're going to help me save people." Sam's eyebrow was up and there might be more than one way to take the invitation, but the twisty feeling of knowledge in Dean's gut only wanted it to go one way.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm up for that." Sam laughed, a little evil and a lot happy, and Dean felt the answering laugh warm in his belly before he let it out. He followed Sam out through the crowd that hovered around him, thick as molasses, reaching out to touch, high five, congratulate.

"Should we do something about-- that?" Dean whispered when he got caught up close enough to Sam to be heard.

Sam just shrugged. "Ruby will take care of it," he said, and pointed to a slim, dark haired girl with perfectly pressed jeans and a killer smile. "She's really good at that kind of thing." Ruby flashed Dean a grin and a quick salute when Sam pointed her out and Dean tried not to think about the fact that this happened enough for someone to have gotten good at body disposal.

It seemed to take forever before they were finally clear of Sam's admirers, but then it was like there was no time at all until Sam was kicking in the creaky door of an abandoned looking house, leaving a gray bootmark on the fading, peeling, white of the paint.

"Come on," Sam called over his shoulder and dashed inside. "Last one in has to swallow!" And, whoa, if Dean had any doubt what was happening here, that kind of killed it. He was grinning like a madman while he chased Sam into a small, bare room with stacks of books in one corner and a mattress covered with messy looking blankets in the other.

"Not exactly fair, dude," Dean said, paused in the doorway, watching. Watching Sam stop in the middle of the floor, and go still to turn around and look at him, eyes as bright as his smile."You knew where you were going. I didn't."

Sam laughed, his head tipping back with the motion. There was afternoon sunlight pouring in through a cracked window pain and it painted his cheeks in gold. "Does that mean you won't swallow? Because I will."

He didn't, normally swallow. Dean didn't do that kind of thing, because, hey, nasty. But-- "No," Dean admitted and took a step into the room. "I will."

"Good. I'll hold you to that."

Sam's hands were long and wide, tight around the hem of his t-shirt. His eyes met Dean's, the muddy hazel color Dean had first seen in the alley turned to a clear green in the golden sunlight. His mouth was smiling, but those were serious eyes, run for the hills because otherwise this could really be heading into heavy shit territory eyes. Which was crazy, because Dean hardly knew the kid.

It was crazy, because Dean's brain was also gibbering at him that it was actually wishful thinking, no way a kid like this would want-- and then Sam pulled his shirt off in one smooth, easy motion and threw it at Dean's head, blocking off the view of the long, lean muscle of his chest for a second too long. Dean laughed and batted it away.

"Come on, what are you waiting for?" Sam taunted. "Winter?" Which, yeah, Dean had no clue what he was doing hanging in the door way when he could be closer, could be touching.

He stepped inside, one deliberate step after another, while Sam unzipped his jeans. Up close, Dean could see bruises and cuts, the marks of fists and knives. Some were fresh, probably souvenirs from the demon in the alley. More were half healed or just faded down to faint white and red lines of scar tissue.

A couple were still bleeding. Dean swallowed. "I could patch you up first. I mean, Dude. That has to hurt."

Sam, though, he just rolled his eyes and scratched the back of his neck. "Endorphins," he said, with a faint, rueful smile. "I might be feeling it later, but now? Now, I really, really just want you to come here, Dean."

Dean opened his mouth to say something else, maybe protest, but by then Sam had stepped out of his jeans-- jeans he wasn't wearing anything underneath, and was coming for him instead. Sam cupped his hands around Dean's chin, and fuck, Dean wasn't a short guy, no way, but Sam had to lean down to plant one on him.

Dean had been kissed a lot since he hit puberty and figured out what kissing was for, emphatically and sincerely, wet and dirty as hell. He might even have considered himself kind of an expert on that whole kissing thing.

Sam, though? Might possibly be the guy the experts learned from. Sam's hands where tight on Dean's face, keeping him steady, grounding him, and his mouth was hot-- wet, but not sloppy. It was almost careful, at first, like Sam was waiting for a go ahead.

Dean parted his lips, sharing air, tasting Sam's, and that seemed to be go ahead enough. Sam made a sound, half growl, low and deep and he tugged Dean forward, a few stumbling steps without ever letting the lip lock go.

They kept moving, jerky, shambling steps, until Sam spilled down across the mattress, sending Dean sprawling on top of him. He laughed, breathlessly deep, while Dean tucked his head against Sam's shoulder and found himself laughing back.

"Hey," Sam whispered into his ear when he finally evened out his breathing, and that made Dean laugh harder, laugh until Sam caught his earlobe between his teeth and bit in a way that should have hurt, but just made Dean tear out a moan instead.

"Ow," he protested, but Sam just blew cool air across the spot where he'd bitten, sending a shiver down sensitized skin.

"Just for that," Sam growled, and pushed him off and over before scrambling on top, "I'm the one who's swallowing first."

Dean huffed a laugh. "So not a punishment in the eyes of the universe, man," he said, but Sam had stopped listening to him by then. Too busy laying a trail of fire and spit and sensitized nerves down the line of Dean's belly. He wasn't rough, but he was thorough, just about wrote his name across Dean's skin with teeth and tongue, and by the time he pushed his hand down into Dean's boxers to free his cock, Dean was so ready to go he could have hammered nails with the thing.

"Hurry it up," he growled, but the force of it got lost, when he pushed himself up on his elbows and caught Sam's eyes. Sam's face was set, a slow concentration, like he was being graded on the sounds and motions he managed to pull out of Dean. Like he'd never done anything this serious, ever.

Dean swallowed hard and lifted his hips up so Sam could push his boxers down, leaving them twisted up around his knees. His cock slapped up against his belly, leaving a wet trail of precome. Sam licked his lips and Dean could feel them even before they teased across the head of his cock and over the slit, too light to do anything but make Dean's hips jerk up, eager for a pressure he wasn't getting.

"Sam," he hissed. He barely recognized the low, whiny noise, deep in his throat. Then Sam's mouth opened to swallow him down and Dean forgot to worry about recognizing any damned thing but how good it felt.

Just for a second, and then Sam pulled his mouth up, leaving Dean whimpering and thrusting at the air. "Pay attention," Sam murmured. "Because it is so your turn next." Then he was back at it and Dean's reply got lost in a low, wet moan when Sam let his throat open up to take Dean all the way inside until Dean's balls where flush with his chin.

Tight and wet and hot and then that... the sight of that, Sam's mouth stretched wide and pornographic, Sam's eyes a starving dark color and fixed on his, like this was the best thing ever and all he wanted was to keep doing it. Like Sam thought doing this for Dean was seriously awesome. Dean kept it together for what felt forever but was probably an embarrassingly short time and then he thrust up, once, twice and he was losing it, watching the way Sam's throat worked as he swallowed with thick, hungry gulps.

By the time Sam let him go, Dean found himself sprawled on the mattress, loose and breathless, like someone had sucked out all his bones. His hands were tangled in the soft, long strands of Sam's hair and he had the weird desire to frost the strands with his own come, see it there all white and sticky. That would have to be next time-- Sam had drained him dry this one.

Still, Dean Winchester absolutely refused to be the guy that rolled over to snore once he got his, so as soon as he got his breath back he reached between Sam's legs, ready to give his own back. Sam blinked down at him blearily and shrugged, shaking his head. His cock in Dean's hand was wet, soft and spent.

Dean laughed, purely delighted for the first time in... he didn't even know. "You came sucking me, huh?" he crowed. "That's awesome." Then, totally unexpectedly, Sam turned red. A bright, deep blush that spread over his bare, golden skin. Dean reached out to pet the flushed skin, grinning and marveling at the heat of it.

"You don't need to get all ego-boy over it. Maybe I just really like sucking cock, hmm?" Sam mumbled, but he tucked his face back down against Dean's shoulder and made a soft, contented sounding noise.

"Sure," Dean teased, but he kept on stroking all that skin, bare and easy to touch, kept petting Sam's hair, trying to put his hands all over every place he could reach. He only stopped when he found one of those still open cuts and his touch made Sam hiss and jerk away. There was sticky, drying blood on Sam's back, not enough to freak Dean out but enough that someone had to do something about it.

"Dude, now you really have to let me patch you up," he said, harsher than he'd meant to, but Sam just nodded, his blush long gone.

"Lemme get my kit," Sam said, and scrambled to his feet with a little too much careful deliberateness for a healthy guy before stumbling over to the corner and coming back with an understocked first aid kit he pulled off one of the piles of books. "I usually do this myself," Sam added when Dean popped open a bottle of rubbing alcohol and poured it over a nasty looking cut along Sam's spine. Sam made a a hissing noise between his teeth, but didn't flinch.

"Dude, why? Your fan club wouldn't help you out?" Dean asked. He stroked his fingers around one especially vicious bruise, careful to avoid the edges of it. "Is all they do stand around and cheer when you fight?" Irritation sparked out from under his fucked out languor. Sam deserved a hell of a lot better than that. At least Dean had Dad to patch him up when he was around.

Sam shrugged, making the cut bleed fresh with the motion while Dean fumbled for some gauze. "They would," Sam said. "But it makes them feel better to think I don't get hurt. There's a lot of shit going down, and they need-- I don't know. Someone to look up to, I guess."

Dean stared down at Sam's back. "Dude," he hissed. "You're a psycho martyr freak. That doesn't even make sense."

Sam twisted his head around and peered at him, a dumb looking grin on his face. "Awww, honey, you're just saying that!" he crowed. Dean smacked him across the back of his neck and Sam turned around but he was definitely laughing at him. Little bastard.

Sam didn't say anything else for a while, not until Dean snapped the first aid kit closed and put it aside. "You should stick around for a while." Sam's voice was different, almost tentative. "You're a-- you hunt things, right? We have things that need hunting. There have been kids disappearing. Crazy shit. I do what I can, but I'm just one guy, you know?"

Dean smiled. "Yeah, I heard. And... yeah, okay, I could do that, if you need the assist."

Sam held out a hand to him and Dean let him pull him down into bed. "Good," Sam whispered into his ear. "That's really good."

That night Dean dreamed twisted. The rumors about Sam, the sight of that demon and the mess it had made of its host. Black eyes and nightmares. In Dean's dream, Sam's eyes were the ones that glowed, yellow instead of black and the world burned around him, like his footsteps were matches and accelerant.

Sam kissed him and Dean caught fire, feeling his skin and muscle flare up and peel away from bone. He didn't scream, just looked into Sam's deep yellow eyes and watched himself burn in the reflection mirrored there.

When Dean woke up, Sam was leaning over him. Looming, actually, the kid was tall as fuck and surprisingly solid. There was a weird, curvy smile on his face, though, and when he saw Dean was awake, he leaned down to brush his lips over Dean's forehead in a way that made Dean blink up at him.

"Hey," Sam whispered. "Morning."

"Morning," Dean whispered back with early morning hoarseness. Sam's eyes were a normal muddy hazel and his kiss was cool and sweet. No fire. "I had some crazy ass dreams, man."

Sam gave a lopsided smile. "Me too," he said. "I'm used to it, though. Nightmares are actually secretly my favorite thing."

Dean nodded hard, trying to shake his own nightmare out of his brain. "That-- yesterday. That demon yesterday," he finally said. "You killed a lot like that?"

Sam closed his eyes and turned his face away. "Yeah, I guess it depends on what you mean by a lot," he said. "More and more lately. It's like they know where I live or something." He laughed shortly. "Well, I guess they do."

Dean pushed himself into a sitting position and looked at Sam more carefully. In the morning light his eyes were most definitely not yellow. He looked tired and Dean wondered how bad his dreams had been. "You think they're after you? Why?" he asked.

Sam just shrugged. "They think I've got something of theirs," he said and rubbed his eyes, making him look young and sleepy again. "I guess. Who knows, really? With demons."

"Something of theirs?" Dean repeated. "Like what? That-- I don't know, that knife you have?"

"No. That was a gift-- fair and square." Sam made an abortive move toward his hip, like he was looking for that very thing, and then let his hand fall loose at his side. "It doesn't matter," he said softly. "They're small stuff in the scheme of things."

"_Demons_ are small stuff?" Dean's voice rose an octave and he blinked. "Seriously? I've been hunting the supernatural since I was a kid and this is the first time I've even seen one. I heard you normally get, what, one possession a year? In the whole country."

Sam looked away and then turned back to face Dean. His mouth was twisted. "I guess I'm special, then. Wish I'd never seen one. Sounds like it would have been a great life to me," he muttered.

Dean frowned. Why Sam, then? Why any of this? "Is there something here that attracts them?"

Sam's mouth twisted and he tilted his chin away. "Yeah," he said. "I guess there is. I told you. They think I have something they want."

"Like what?" Dean demanded, leaning forward. "If you tell me, maybe I can help you."

"Like-- just trust me, okay? Can you do that?" Sam's eyes were big, pleading. Dean bit his lip.

That was when his cell rang, the open riffs to Enter Sandman, letting him know it was Dad. "I have to take this," he said, flipping the phone out of his pocket. "Can I just-- gimme a second and we'll talk about this."

Sam didn't say anything, just shrugged and stood up, clearing out of the room to give Dean his privacy. Dean waited a pause and then stood up himself. "Hang on a second, dude," he told Dad on the line while he fumbled for his pants and then let himself outside onto the back porch. Then he spoke into the phone, soft and fast, filling his dad in on the... well, the non NC-17 events thus far. "It's the Sam kid I can't figure out," he finished with. "I think... I know he's one of the good guys, though."

Dad's voice was choppy on the phone, static cutting in and out. "I don't know, Dean," he said. "No one I know has ever heard of this Sam kid, not before he showed up in Binghamton and things started to happen around him. What do you know about him?"

He knew that Sam had told him to trust him. He knew he wanted to. "He's good, Dad. Really good, he took down a demon without flinching. I don't mean, exorcise, I mean kill. With a carving knife." Dean whistled despite himself. He hadn't even known that was supposed to be possible.

Dad made a coughing sound. "Killed a demon? Are you serious? That-- Dean, I've never heard of a knife that could do that. Where did this kid get something like that? Hell, I've never heard of a person who could do that!"

Dean laughed. "Sam is awesome, Dad. Wait until you meet him, he will-- he's something." Raw enthusiasm bubbled out of him.

There was a moment of static filled silence and then Dad's voice cut in from the other end. "Dean," he said, sharp, demanding attention. "I have never heard of a person who could do that, not in all of my research. The only thing that's ever built a weapon that kills demons are more powerful demons. Do you get what I'm telling you? Far as I know, the only thing that can kill a demon is another demon."

Dean went still. "Sam's no demon," he said back, just as sharply. "I think I would know if he was."

He could hear his father sigh, imagine the look on his face. Irritated, disappointed. "Maybe not, son. They ain't exactly your area of expertise. Just find out where he got that knife before you trust him."

Dean muttered something under his breath and flicked the phone closed and stuffed it into his pocket before wandering back inside.

Sam was leaning against the peeling linoleum of the kitchen counter, shoving potato chips in his mouth. He wasn't wearing anything but a t-shirt that barely covered his ass and he grinned and raised an eyebrow at Dean's equally disheveled post-sex duds. The sight made Dean feel a hell of a lot better for no particular reason and he grinned and gave Sam a cheerful salute.

"Anything good on the phone?" Sam asked. Dean just shrugged.

"Got any for me?" he said and nodded at Sam's chips instead of answering. Sam smirked and tossed the crinkled bag in his direction. Dean waited until he'd gotten through most of a mouthful before he turned back to Sam who was just watching him, arms folded in front of him. "It was my dad," he said. "Checking up to see how the hunt was going."

"Your dad," Sam repeated. "He's the one that sent you here?"

Dean frowned, rewinding in his head to try and remember what he'd told Sam about Dad before. "He was the one who read about the disappearances in the paper. Made it seem like it might be my kind of thing," he admitted.

Sam gave a tilted, strangely sweet smile and took a step forward. "I guess it is," he said and then he took the bag out of Dean's hand and tossed it on the counter before sliding even closer into Dean's space. "I'm really interested in your kind of thing, let's take a closer look."

When Sam took Dean's hand by the fingers and pressed the palm against his own bare ass Dean's breath sharpened and he thought that maybe he might be interested in Sam's kind of thing too. He forgot to ask about the knife... Sam definitely didn't have a knife now.

Dean pushed the knife to the back of his mind. It was easier to think about sex and sugar and the way Sam moved, like he owned the whole freaking universe. The way Sam rode him like it was a contest and he wasn't going to lose. For a while there was nothing on his brain at all but Sam. Sam's mouth and the sharp, jutting bones of Sam's hips, the sweat damp slickness of the skin on Sam's ass and thighs.

He hadn't thought it was humanly possible to come this much in this short a time until Sam showed him how wrong he was.

When Dean was focused enough to think about anything but touching, Sam was grinning down at him. He felt loose and gooey, like his bones had melted and everything was warm and sweet. He didn't know what would have happened next if Sam's phone hadn't rung, sharp and angry sounding. Sam rolled his eyes and lunged for it where it rested open on the kitchen counter.

He was only on it for a minute or two, making small, non-committal noises and grunts before he finally nodded and said. "Yeah. Okay. I'll be there in forty." Then Sam looked over at Dean and said, "So, hunter boy, you came to find out what was taking kids, right? Want to help me nail this thing?"

Dean made a sound that he hoped came across as yes. Sam laughed and rubbed his hand over the sticky mess of semen drying on Dean's stomach. "Shower first though. This place is awesome, it's even got running water. Hot water."

"You're living in the lap of luxury, wow," Deans said flatly and Sam just rolled his eyes.

"It is the penthouse version of the wonderful world of squatting," Sam said with mock seriousness. "You'd know that if you'd lived a life as interesting and various as me. Come on, dude. Shower."

Dean snorted. "Interesting and various? What the fuck does that even mean in normal person talk?" Sam grabbed him by the waistband of his shorts and tugged him along instead of answering.

The hot water tank lasted longer than Dean's jelly fish knees. Sam was probably going to kill him, but Dean figured this was really the way to go and he was still grinning like an idiot when Sam dragged his shirt back over his head and said something about hunting evil.

"So, tell me what you know about it," Dean finally managed to say when they were outside, weak morning sun on his face and reflecting off of Sam's bright toothed smile. "Tell me what we're going to see."

"It?" Sam asked and then shrugged. "Oh, right." He closed his eyes and when he opened them again his smile was duller, smaller. "It started around three weeks ago, I think. This kid... Max. I didn't really know him. He was your typical suburban throw away, I guess. Asshole dad. New stepmom who didn't give a shit. Whatever."

Dean nodded, slowing down when Sam did. Stopping when Sam stopped walking and just stood there on the cracked sidewalk like everything was cool. "What happened?" he asked softly.

Sam's mouth quirked up a little, but it wasn't a smile. He looked Dean dead in the eye. "First time I really met him to talk to, he was trying to break into my squat," he said, soft and steady, like he was waiting for some kind of reaction. "I kicked his ass and chewed him out over it. Next time I saw him, they'd fished him out of the river. He looked really pale. Bruises under his eyes, like he never slept. Or like someone tried to break his face."

"Do you think--" Dean began and then stopped. He wasn't sure what to ask, exactly.

Sam gave him a lopsided smile and let his bangs hang low, brushing against his eyelashes. "I think someone told him to break in. Someone wanted something I have."

"What?" Dean asked without thinking about it. "Come on, what is there other than your demon killer knife?" As far as he could tell there was nothing worth anything in Sam's dusty squat but that and piles of books.

Sam blinked. His eyes were wide and almost soft looking. "Why?" he asked. "Is that what you want?"

It took a minute for that to sink in. Dean's stomach twisted when it did. "Dude," his hissed. "I came here to find out what's killing your people. I help people."

Sam's eyes narrowed and he looked away. "Do you?" he asked. "I guess I haven't met a lot of genuine altruists in my life."

"Fuck you, you haven't today, hunting's just what I do. Anyway-- you're the one that invited me to your place," Dean spat. "You're the one who-- you asked me to be here, in case you don't remember. Why the fuck are we playing questions now?"

Sam sucked in an audible breath and shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know why I said that."

Dean rubbed his eyes with his fists. The truth was, he didn't know why it bugged him so much Sam had. Yeah, it seemed like a hell of a jump from bone rattling sex to-- whatever Sam was trying to do, but it wasn't like they really knew each other. It wasn't like there was any reason for the coldness in Dean's stomach and the heat in his groin. The gut twist that seemed to scream _I recognize you, I know you_, every time he looked at Sam.

"Well, don't," he muttered. "No one likes head games, okay?"

Sam shrugged narrowly. "Yeah," he said. "Okay." There was a moment of quiet, then he breathed out, low and rough. "So. Max was the first one. He wasn't exactly a popular guy-- I didn't know him, but that's what they told me after. At first I figured it might have been just some crazy thing a crazy kid did. You know?"

Dean nodded slowly. "But it wasn't?"

Sam laughed sharply. "Well, you're here, aren't you? Of course it wasn't."

"What happened after that?" Dean pressed.

Sam's mouth twisted back into that half smile. "People started disappearing. It actually got the attention of the cops when they pulled the third body out of the river, but there have been a lot more than three."

"Did they all try to break into your place first?" Dean asked without thinking about it. Sam just raised an eyebrow.

"I think I'd have noticed that if they had," he said. He shook his head. "Anyway, I know how to booby trap a building. Not just anybody could break in. Not many people could even come close unless I invited them."

"Booby trap? How did you do that?"

"I used a little bit of hoodoo." Sam shrugged. "Something my mom taught me when I was a kid."

Dean wrinkled his nose. "Dude. That shit's unsanitary. You couldn't just put in a burglar alarm?" Sam glared at him for a long minute before it slipped into a grin so wide Dean itched to touch it and see if he could make his sore dick go for one more round.

Sam ducked out of his way, though, still smirking like an idiot. "You're kind of an asshole, you know that, right?" he said. The smile faded after a moment. "I don't know if this part made the newspapers. The last one we found had runes carved into her chest. She was a runaway from, like, fucking Peoria. Pretty girl. Big eyes."

"What kind of runes?" Dean asked but Sam shook his head.

"She was in the water for too long. They got obscured, could have been a lot of things." Sam sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Now, though, we might figure it out."

Dean nodded. "Okay, so what happened now? They find another body with the markings?"

"Ruby did. She says it's kind of out of the way, we have a while before the cops find it." Sam looked at Dean over his shoulder and gave a quick smile. "We'll have to take your car. My non-existent vehicle is in the non-existent shop."

Dean laughed, but really, he wouldn't have had it any other way. "What would you do if I weren't around?" he asked anyway.

Sam laughed and touched his shoulder, warm and open palmed. "That, man, is why god invented hotwiring."

Dean covered his eyes with his palm. "I've hooked up with a criminal mastermind. Let's be friends," he muttered. He could feel Sam grinning at him.

It wasn't a long drive, just to the outskirts of town, but it felt like it should be more isolated. It was an abandoned warehouse with a cracked parking lot full of faded yellow lines.

Inside was a big echoing roof, narrow, broken windows. Sam's friend Ruby was crouched in a corner of what had probably been a foreman's office once upon a time. She tilted her head back and smiled when she saw them, her eyes fixed on Sam. There was something in them Dean didn't understand, but he put it aside for now.

There was a gleaming knife across her lap, but Dean barely caught a glimpse of it before she sheathed it, stood up and ushered them inside.

"Look what I caught," she said brightly, and pointed the corner. Dean winced at the smell before he saw it. Her. She'd been pretty once, the body hung up by the wrists like a slab of meat, the chains painted with weird symbols out of a horror movie. Blonde and thin, dressed in ragged layers of clothes.

She... it. It was alive. It had red eyes, coal red like a dying fire. When it saw them, its eyes seemed to widen even further and it smiled. "Sam," it crooned. "Hello again, Sam."

"Oh, and by the way-- this body's inhabited," Ruby said. "Did I forget to mention that?" Sam flinched back at the same time, just for a second, but enough for Dean to see it, feel the indrawn breath.

Dean almost spat out that it was a hell of a thing to forget to mention, but he never got the chance, because then, just like that, Sam was calm again, stepping forward, closer to it. "Did you get anything from her?" he asked. Steady, matter of fact.

The demon glared and pursed its lips.

Ruby shrugged and stuffed her hands into her back pockets. "Tell him or I'll dig out the holy water," she said.

It laughed at that. Cackled, actually, in a way that made Dean's eyelids twitch. "You?" it said. "Holy water? I don't think so, Ruby."

Ruby tilted her head toward Sam. "Him, actually, I've got some place to be. Now tell him, tell him what you're doing here." She frowned at something over Dean's shoulder and stepped around him like he wasn't there. Stopped to touch Sam's shoulder and for a second Dean thought he was going to say something, but Sam just shrugged her off, shook his head and let her go.

The demon hardly seemed to notice that she was gone. Its lips curled away from teeth, baring them. Pretty mouth, Dean couldn't help but notice that. It made him sick and helpless. Fuck, he hoped Sam wasn't helpless, because one of them had to know what they were doing here. "My master told me to," it said. "Told me to find the boys and make them cry. Are you going to cry, Sammy Campbell?"

Just like that Sam jerked forward. "You killed Max, didn't you? And Ava? Who sent you? What's your name?"

It shook its blonde head. "You know who sent me, don't lie. Anyway, they killed themselves, Sammy-baby," it said. "I just showed them why it was a good idea. Betchya this girl will think it's a really great idea if I ever let her go."

"Why?" Sam repeated, soft and intense. "Tell me the plan and I might have a little empathy for your situation."

It snickered. "Empathy's for losers," it crooned. Then it looked right at Dean, smiled and licked its lips. "Who's your new friend, Sammy? Ever wonder what it was that brought him here to see you? Maybe it was me, maybe he's here because I want him to be."

"I don't think so," Sam spat. "I'd know if he was yours."

It laughed, hoarse and low, like the body it wore had been having throat sex for hours. "You always thought you were so smart. Why don't you give me some alone time with your new friend and I'll see if he thinks I'm smart too?"

That was enough for Dean. More than enough. He put his hands onto Sam's shoulders and tightened them hard. "Sam. Can you just make this stop?" he hissed. "Make this stop."

Sam just looked at him. Turned around and looked at him with those big hazel eyes. He looked really tired and a little green in the dull light but he forced a smile like he was doing it for Dean. "Sure," he whispered. For a second Dean wondered if making it stop would involve that wicked knife Sam had used to kill the other demon.

He didn't have time to wonder long. It smiled, a too human smile on a pretty mouth. "Boys, boys," it crooned. "Whips and chains and knives? Is this how you treat a lady? What would your mother say?"

"Sam," Dean hissed. He didn't get a chance to move.

It was Sam who pressed forward, shoving him back. "My mother," Sam said. "Spent most of her life keeping things like you out of ladies and you _know_ it."

Then he said something else, a string of words that Dean recognized vaguely as church latin. Good against certain types of spirits and all types of demons, or so said Bobby. The words sounded different on Sam's tongue. Wilder, darker.

The demon screamed in its borrowed woman voice. "Don't, no, don't! I won't do it again! It was Azazel, not me! He's the angry one!" it howled and howled. Sam ignored it, fists clenched at his sides, words spat out, relentless. Over and over again.

Dean wanted to cover his ears but Sam didn't, so he didn't either, he made himself listen, hear every damned word. Watch as that thing left the body it was holding, crackling out like a cloud of black smoke, thicker than a wildfire.

"Holy fuck," he whistled. "You're going to have to teach me to do that." If Sam heard him, he didn't say anything to indicate it. He just strode over to the limp body-- so limp Dean would have thought it-- she was dead, if he hadn't heard her moan.

"Hey," Sam whispered to her. "You're Lily, right? I know your girlfriend. You're okay now, Lily. Safe."

The girl blinked. Her eyes were a light, uncertain color. There was a bleeding chest wound, suddenly obvious. Black blood, pouring out fast, too fast. Dean could tell without touching that she was a long way from safe.

"Sam," she breathed. "It hurts. It's hungry... it-- I dreamed." She looked past him and right at Dean, her eyes wide open, watching him. "You. You're the one he wants. Sam--"

Sam put his hands on hers, curling their fingers together while Dean stood by and bit his tongue. He felt helpless and weird, half wondered why Sam had even asked him here. Demons. He'd have to find out so much more about demons. "Him? The yellow eyed man?" Sam asked in a whisper. "I know I'm the one he wants."

She nodded, just once. Choked and gagged and closed her mouth. It didn't open again. A minute later, Sam sighed heavily and slid her eyelids closed with his palm. He slipped back the sleeve of her shirt, revealing a mass of what looked like tattoos or carving on her shoulder. Runes.

"So, do I just stand here and look pretty or is there actually anything I can do to help you?" Dean said. The words came out too loud, angrier than he'd meant them to sound. He hadn't noticed getting angry.

Sam didn't seem to notice either. He just threw Dean a quizzical, distracted look over his shoulder. "Yeah," he said. "Can you draw? I need to draw these symbols for reference and my hands are shaking pretty hard right now." They were. Dean hadn't even noticed that until Sam said so, but when he held them up they moved like someone who hadn't slept in day. Even Sam's face looked tired, mouth turned down, visible strain around the tight skin under his eyes.

Dean almost screamed at him, but he bit his tongue. Instead he took the small notebook Sam tossed at him and started to copy the symbols Sam indicated.

"Do you know what these are?" Dean finally asked when they'd gotten to the last one. It didn't look like much but squiggles, drawn into a dead girl's hip.

Sam made a face and shook his head. If anything his expression went slacker, more tired. "I'm not-- I mean, clearly, it's something demonic and I have my suspicions."

Dean shrugged. "So you don't know everything already," he muttered. It made him feel weirdly better and then sick for feeling the relief.

Sam just made a huffing noise, half laugh and half sob. "If I did, Dean, there wouldn't be all these dead people." Dean could only nod and bend back over the notepad to finish off the sketch.

They didn't say much else before Sam pronounced himself satisfied with the drawing and stood up abruptly. He swayed on his feet and Dean almost moved to help him before Sam ducked out of the way. Sam managed the walk back to the Impala on his own power, but Dean stayed a half step behind, just in case someone needed to catch him and Sam didn't say a word about it.

It felt weird, sitting in the car with Sam on the drive back. Shoulder to shoulder, but not touching, just listening to him breathe. It felt weird, but right, like Sam belonged there. Even Sam looked better, less tired, like he could suddenly breathe okay. It was also scary as fuck to feel like this, but Dean wasn't going to be a coward, not about this. Not even after what he'd seen in the warehouse.

"It would actually be awesome," he made himself say. "I mean. Hunting with someone who... with you. If I knew what I was doing, I mean, I don't want you to think I don't want to."

Sam grinned and rubbed his eyes. "Yeah, you're right. We can get you some lore on demonology and me some lore on ghosts. I would do it again."

"Fuck lore. There's nothing I don't know about ghosts, I'd teach you myself. It could be, like, buddy cop show awesome," Dean said and the flushed, shaking his head without knowing why. He'd never really hunted with anyone but his dad, and whatever that was, it wasn't buddy cop show stuff. "I usually hunt by myself, you know? Or with Dad."

"How'd you and your Dad get into this business anyway?" Sam asked. "Is it some kind of family thing?" His eyes were bright and curious, but Dean figured if he told Sam to fuck off, he would. He couldn't help but remember Sam just before, facing down a demon. His mother...

He didn't tell Sam to fuck off, not the way he would anyone else that asked the question. "My mom and kid brother died. I mean, something... _some thing_ got them. I was four," Dean muttered. "Things... after that, things weren't the same for me and my dad. We got into hunting, to try and find the thing that got them, what it was, how to kill it." Dad did. Dean... well, he did too.

Sam turned away, his lashes fluttering lower. "Oh," he whispered. "With me... my mom died too. It was... we were in the dark-- in a dark place. She was trying to protect me, but she didn't. She just died."

"I'm sorry," Dean said and shrugged, biting his lip. What else could you say?

There was a moment, a long, sick moment of quiet and then Sam turned back to look at him, something in his expression Dean didn't get. "She was a hunter too," Sam said suddenly. "Like you, her whole family was. She told me stories about it, when I was really little, so I would know that you _could_ kill the monsters, that they'd die if you did it right. She... seriously, she was like you."

Dean blinked and scratched the back of his neck. "Like me?" he repeated blankly. His brain was scrambling, trying to picture a hunter, tall, maybe Dad's age, with Sam's dark hair and hazel-green eyes. He probably wouldn't know her, wouldn't have met her before she died. He didn't know many hunters and he could count the women on one hand with fingers to spare. "What was her name?"

Sam's mouth quirked. "Dunno," he admitted, spreading his palms helplessly. "I only ever called her mom, you know? I was pretty little when she died."

"I'm sorry," Dean said and forced a smile before ducking his head away. "I wish that hadn't happened to you."

Sam just gestured broadly, like he was dismissing the thought. "And I wish that hadn't happened to you. Life sucks that way."

"Hey, I've got my dad," Dean said after a moment of silence.

He didn't think Sam was going to say anything, but after a while he did. "My mom said my dad was innocent," Sam muttered and closed his eyes, tipping back his head. "I think... I think she meant he didn't know about the monsters. He wasn't like us."

"He around?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head. "Never knew the guy. I don't think-- she didn't think he was dead, but it wasn't like I had much to go on when I got the chance to look. I don't even know his name."

"Sucks," Dean mumbled, because he didn't know what to say. Sam gave him a curious, lopsided smile.

Then he leaned forward and caught Dean by the chin, fingers spread, palm flat, and kissed him, soft and serious. "Tomorrow," he said. "Show me about ghosts."

Dean breathed out heavily. "Seriously, you don't know about ghosts?" he asked.

Sam huffed a laugh. "Seriously, it never came up. Ghosts don't follow me around, just demons."

Dean nodded. He almost moved in to claim a kiss of his own, but stopped an inch away from it, frowning. "Sam?" he asked. "That demon in there said-- who is Azazel? A demon, right?"

Sam bit his lower lip and shook his head. "Yeah," he said. "He is. A greater demon, he's the one who--but... look, you don't have to worry about him. He's nowhere he can do any harm right now."

Dean's frown deepened. "Dude. He can if he sent the one that killed that girl. It killed all those other kids too, didn't it?"

"She did kill them, yeah," Sam admitted. He closed his eyes, pressing his palms against them. "Okay. You might have a point," he finally said. "If I come up with a way to stop this, I will."

"Okay," Dean said and forced a smile. "

\

 

They talked a good game about hunting ghosts and killing demons, but when they got back to Sam's place all Sam did was crawl straight into bed. He didn't even kick his shoes off, Dean did it for him. It was another moment of dissonance, to have this guy he hadn't known existed two days ago fall asleep in front of him like he'd never trust anyone more.

It made Dean's stomach tie into knots while he knelt by Sam's bed and slid his sneakers off and then tucked the covers around him while he was a kid. "You're crazy, you can't trust me," he mumbled. "You've got a fucking demon after you and I could... I could do anything while you're asleep."

He didn't think he was loud, but it must have been loud enough or Sam was half faking sleep, because his dark lashes fluttered and his eyes cracked open. "Nah," Sam said and then gave a heavy yawn. "You won't. I can tell, you glow right here. Like you're blessed." And he reached out with his ridiculous long monkey arm and rested a fingertip against Dean's forehead before letting it fall back down at his side.

Right where the crazy old nursing home lady had tapped him. Right where mom had used to kiss him and tell him everything was going to be okay.

"Glow?" Dean whispered, but a few seconds later Sam started snoring. If he was pretending he was really fucking good at it. Dean sat next to Sam in his bed, wide awake for what seemed like forever before he finally shook his head and climbed under the covers. Sam made a snuffling sound in his sleep and wound his body close like a heat seeking missile.

Dean grinned and shut his eyes. Okay, this was weird. But it wasn't bad. That was the last thought he had before he fell headfirst into sleep.

In the morning, he still vaguely remembered that somewhere out there was a hunt, but it was hard to care about that when Sam crawled on top of him, all loose and open like he'd woken up and spent some time fingering himself while he watched Dean sleep and settled down on his cock like he was born for it.

In the end it wasn't Dean who changed everything. It was Sam, one early morning when they'd both been woken up by Ruby pounding on the door and screaming that there was shit to do. It made Sam sit up, face a little yellow and strange in the pale light.

Sam rubbed his knuckles against his temples and gave Dean a strained smile. "Look, I'd better go see what she wants," he said. "It's probably another demon. Ruby gets territorial about that shit."

Dean nodded, too tired to wonder what the hell a person had to get territorial about with a demon. Other than just hating the fuckers in their territory, which he could totally get behind. "Yeah," he said reluctantly. The bed was warm and so was Sam. "I guess. Let me get on my jeans."

Sam just pursed his lips, tightening his mouth like a prune. "What are you going to do about a demon, Dean? Watch? I know I promised to teach you, but... well, we haven't yet. Anyway, you look like you could use some sleep."

Dean's protest was interrupted by a long, cracking yawn. He flushed and looked away, closing his eyes. "_You_ could use some sleep," he muttered, but Sam ignored him.

"Seriously, Dean. Rest. I'll be back in a few hours. If you feel like it, you can dig around my place, anywhere you like, read some books or something. Just stay out of the bedroom closet."

Dean cracked an eye open. "Why? What's in the closet?"

"Just some stuff I don't want getting out," Sam said, with a guileless, tired little boy expression. "Come on, just go back to sleep. I know I owe you a couple of stories and we'll talk about it some more when I get back, okay?" He sat down on the edge of the mattress, next to Dean's shoulder, and pressed one palm over Dean's cheek. "Sleep," he repeated and the words sounded firm, like an order.

Dean couldn't help it. He obeyed. Maybe he really was just that tired.

When he woke up he was alone, curled up in sheets that smelled like Sam and sex. He moaned and buried his head under the pillow but Sam didn't suddenly turn up and his stomach started to growl, driving him awake. He stretched out until his spine cracked, yawning heavily before crawling out of bed.

"Food," he mumbled, stumbling barefoot through the empty halls in a direction he was pretty sure would lead him to the kitchen. A couple of days in this empty beast of a house and he still got turned around.

Not that there was much to do in the kitchen. There was no electricity even if the water still worked, so the fridge stood empty and sad, the door hanging open. There were cans and can openers on the cupboard, though, and plastic packages full of cheese crackers.

Dean ate his way through those, stuffing them into his mouth before tossing the empty wrappers in a bag hanging off a doorknob. Then he wandered back into Sam's room, thinking about sleep mostly.

The first thing he saw was the closet door. Sam had said... what? That there was something in there he didn't want getting out?

Dean frowned, staring at the door. It was ordinary plywood, no lock, nothing special. What the hell could even be in there? Probably nothing. Maybe... he couldn't help remembering what Dad had said, though. The knife. No human could make a knife that killed demons.

He rubbed his eyes, shook his head and walked back out of the room to take a nap on the back porch instead. It was louder and less comfortable, but nice too, the sun on his face and the clean smell of grass and wildflowers.

It was the dreams that woke him up. Black eyes, like there were layers and layers of blood that had stagnated and dried. Demon black.

Sam's eyes, down to the slant of them and the way they crinkled when he smiled. Sam's mouth, but the words in it were alien. Whispering. "Do you trust me, Dean-o? Don't you trust me?"

Dean flinched back, hard enough to wake himself up just as Sam's hands were closing around his throat. He didn't come away screaming, but there was sweat on his face and down his spine and he felt shaky and filthy as hell.

He went back inside, unsteady on his feet.

There was probably nothing in the closet, but maybe there was. Dean opened it. The door was stiff and surprisingly heavy, maybe not plywood after all, but when he jerked at it, it yielded. The first thing that hit Dean was the stench, making him gasp and gag. He literally didn't understand why it hadn't wound its way through everything, making the bedroom-- fuck, the whole house, stink of sulphur and rot.

When he blinked the water out of his eyes he saw a man staring back at him, or something that looked like a man. At first Dean thought it was a demon, but he didn't have that same eaten up, black eyed creepiness of the other demons Dean had seen.

Instead he looked like an old man, broken and pathetic. He was thin as a week old corpse and hung with red chains and symbols that looked so heavy he probably couldn't move at all. Chalked symbols were all over the closet floor, and Dean wondered if they had power in them, if that was what kept the man quiet and hidden. It was like something out of a horror movie. Sam, beautiful smiling Sam who'd owned him so damned thoroughly, had also put this guy here.

The man stared at Dean and licked his lips. "Water," he begged hoarsely, the words graveled and hard to hear. "Please, have mercy. Water."

Dean's brain wasn't even working right. He didn't know what he'd expected in Sam's closet-- some kind of spell work, something not right, but not-- not this. If the man didn't look like he was about a thousand years old Dean would have figured he was one of the missing kids.

He reached out and put a hand on the man's trembling shoulder and whispered to him. "Sure. I'll get some. I will. You'll be okay." Then he backed away quickly before turning and almost running into the kitchen like he was being chased. There was a cracked, chipped mug on the counter with a yellow smiley face painted on and Dean filled it with water, trying not to think about Sam, drinking from this and keeping a man in his closet.

He almost ran back to Sam's room with it, the cup sloshing and water spilling over the edges onto his wrists, staining his sleeves. He thrust it through the closet door to hand to the man, to help him drink it when his wrist jerked and he spilled even more, washing away some of the weirdo chalk symbols on the closet floor.

He didn't erase much, he didn't even realize they were gone until something started smoking. That was when all hell broke loose.

The man in the closet blinked and his eyes gleamed yellow, yellow as the ones haunting Dean's dreams. He grinned, a wide toothy smirk and shifted his shoulders. His chains cracked with the motion and he shook them off like they were cellophane and glass, shattering on the ground.

Dean took a step back, automatically reaching for the gun in his belt, but he never had time to draw it. The man was faster than him, faster than anything Dean had ever seen. Demon fast, with breath like sulphur as he shoved Dean back against the wall and whispered in his ear.

"Thanks for that, Dean, my boy," he said. "I'd never have gotten out without you. I thought my-- call them followers-- were crazy, trying to attract a hunter with their little crime spree. But it brought you-- someone who'd get Sam to let him into this damned house. Someone pretty and sweet and malleable to my needs like you. So, thank you. But now I'm going to have to go and collect my Sam."

"Sam?" Dean repeated witlessly, shuddering, skin crawling to get away from the man's touch. Why had he ever thought he wasn't a demon? His head hurt, ached like something wrong had climbed inside.

"Sam is very special to me," the man whispered. "Even if he had the bad taste to lock me up like that. But, then you know better than anyone just how special he is." The man reared back so he was looking Dean in the eyes. "Not that you'll ever see him again."

"Who are you?" Dean hissed, arching in a brutal grip. "Stay the fuck away from him!"

The man's mouth curved, sweet and evil. His eyes flared that sick, filthy yellow. "Who am I? I'm Azazel, Dean," he crooned. "I'm sure you've heard my name before now. And I'm the one who owns Sam. Now, say goodbye, Dean." He pressed a fingertip against Dean's forehead, that spot where mom had touched him, where Sam had. It hurt, that touch, like fire and nightmares and then the world fell away.

Dean woke up with the taste of roadkill in his mouth and a boot in his stomach, sharp and pointy as hell, and making him moan and try to crawl away. "Stop it," he whimpered.

"Wake the fuck up," someone hissed. A female someone, probably the owner of the boots, since the tone matched the pointedness. "Do you have any idea of what the fuck you did?"

Dean moaned and opened his eyes and found himself staring up at the pretty dark haired girl with a familiar face and unfamiliar demon black eyes and a brutal expression. He skidded away, rolling onto his side like that would protect him. "Get away," he said, like that was going to do any good.

"No, you freak," she said. "You as good as gave Sam to Azazel. I should have warned you I'd fuck you over and up if anything happened to him because of you. Well, consider yourself warned pre-ass kicking."

At first Dean couldn't even remember. It was like a brick when he did. "Azazel? What the hell-- Ruby?" Dean demanded. She looked strange this way, distorted, but obviously herself. "You're a demon!"

She laughed and there was nothing funny in it. "Oh look, you can see. You should seen what he was too. You know, Azazel, the demon you let out of Sam's closet."

"Does Sam know you're a demon?" Dean hissed like she hadn't said anything. He tried to get up, but the boot slamming into a tender place in his side made him gag and curl in on himself instead. Her eyes blazed furiously, the black behind them swirling.

"Sam knows I'm not a traitor," she spat. "Sam knows I can be trusted not to let fucking Azazel off his fucking leash. Do you know what it cost to lock him up there in the first place? Do you know what Sam had to do, had to endure?"

He closed his eyes. He didn't actually want to know. He didn't think he wanted to hear a word, not until he knew Sam was okay, safe. Sam had trusted him. Sam had taken him into his bed and his house, because he trusted Dean.

"I-- I'll help him," Dean whispered. "We can, we'll warn him. Azazel or whatever, won't get near him, Sam's strong."

Ruby made a low noise and kicked again, hard enough Dean was half freaked he'd end up pissing blood. It took a few seconds to clear the red pain haze from his brain before he could see again, hear anything but buzzing in his ears. Then he wished he couldn't hear at all.

"-- took him, too fast. Sam wasn't on guard, dammit, we didn't have the wards up," she was wailing. "He's gone, you bastard and I can't help him, not where he is."

"Where is he?" Dean whispered and tried not to think of gone or what it meant that the thing that had come out of the closet-- that Sam had put in that closet to begin with-- was free and out and had Sam. "I'll help him."

"You?" Ruby said and laughed, low and harsh. "Will you? How? Sam said you didn't know a fucking thing about demonology. If it were up to me, he'd have strung you up, not taken you into his house. He should have known you were one more trap Azazel laid out for him."

Dean covered his face with his hands. "I have to find him. Fuck you, you're a demon anyway."

"And you're an asshole," she muttered, but she didn't kick him again. Instead she was quiet and when Dean looked at her through his fingers she had a sharp, contemplative look on her face like her brain was ticking on about something. "I know where he is."

Dean sat up abruptly, never mind the sharp pain from the rising bruises on his side. "What?" he said. "Wait, why the hell can't you do something if you know where he is?"

Ruby narrowed her eyes like he was an especially stupid pre-school kid. "Because I'm the one that got him out the first time and Azazel doesn't make the same mistake twice. The place he has Sam is warded against me. It's like a giant Ruby keep out electric fence and it works too damned well."

Dean bit his lip. "Would it be warded against me?" he asked softly, staring up at her for the answer.

Ruby shrugged carelessly. "Why would it be? What kind of threat are you? As far as I know you don't even know how to deal with a low grade demon, never mind a Duke of Hell like Azazel."

Dean forced himself up to his feet, slowly and carefully. "I could learn," he said.

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Like we have time for _that_. But, well," she said. "Hey. The only one who'd end up worse off if you go up against the big boss and lose is you, man, so whatever."

"Tell me where he is," Dean said and tried not to make it sound like he was pleading for something. Ruby shrugged. Then she talked.

\  
The house was old, set back far from the road, right on the river bank. There were no cars in the driveway, no nothing. It smelled empty, more abandoned than the squat that Sam was inhabiting.

The front door was locked but not deadbolted. Dean and his picks got through it like it was paper mache. Inside was just as empty, no furniture and a layer of thick dust over everything, with a pair of footprints visible and heading down the hall.

Dean shrugged and followed them, shoulders tense and braced, waiting for monsters to jump him, for Azazel, for a demon. Nothing came. He didn't know why, if there was worse waiting at the end of the path, he just gritted his teeth and walked, hearing nothing but the sounds of his own footsteps echoing against the squeaky hardwood underneath him.

He finally came to what must have been a formal dining room once, with a cathedral ceiling and narrow windows. Instead of a table, there was a cage in the middle of the room, up on a pedestal like it was furniture. Inside that cage there was Sam and Dean's breath went back to normal without him ever remembering when it had gotten off.

Sam looked awful, face pale with circles under his eyes. Clothes disheveled, and bruised arms wrapped around his stomach. Hunched over. The last part could have just been how small the cage was, barely room for a guy as tall as Sam to stand up straight without his head brushing against the iron on the top. Still, it was Sam, and Sam looked about as good as a guy who'd been a house guest to a demon could.

Sam looked at him. He didn't know what he expected. Sam to scream, to hate him. To look at him like Dean was the biggest, most useless fuck up ever.

It ended up being none of those.

Sam's face was bruised, strained looking as Dean felt, but when he looked up to see Dean standing outside his cage he smiled and it was just as bright as it had been the first time he took Dean home with him. Dean could feel the answering smile stretch his face and it seemed exactly right. Like breathing Sam's air made it better. Crazy shit.

Dean bit his lip. "Hey, Sam," he whispered. "I came to get you out."

"Hey, dumbass," Sam said, but he didn't actually sound angry even though the quick smile was just as quick to disappear. Only the flare of his nostrils and the tightness around his eyes showed that he was. "Didn't I tell you not to open the closet door? Or were you too big, bad hunter boy to listen?"

He didn't say, _I trusted you_. He didn't say, _I never trusted anyone like that before_. Dean could hear the words just as if he had. Could feel the weight of Sam's tired gaze. Dull, trapped looking. Sam was trapped and it was because of Dean. It would have been easier if Sam just started in screaming at him.

Dean's shoulders slumped but he pressed his fingers through the bars of Sam's cage and Sam caught them between his own. "Would you believe I thought you might be evil? I... I'm sorry."

Sam blinked and his grip tightened around Dean's. The grip was hard enough to hurt, but Dean didn't even try to squirm his way out of it. Sam's hand felt too good for that. "Seriously?" he asked. "Evil? Why, what did I do that was evil in your book, Winchester?"

"I--" It sounded kind of pathetic in Dean's head when he scrambled for the words. Why? Because he liked Sam too much, way too much for a skinny, wild kid he'd just met? Because he had crazy-ass dreams about old yellow eyes from that first night in Sam's bed? Dreams that didn't make any sense, but felt more real than anything else. Other than Sam. Mostly because he had no fucking clue what any of this was. "All I knew coming into town was that there were demons and they were killing kids and... there was you. You were the most powerful thing in that town and you could just slaughter fucking demons. I-- it's stupid, I'm sorry."

Sam just looked away. "Yeah," he said, but he didn't let go of Dean's hand, just held on bruisingly hard. "Let me guess. You dreamed that it was me? You dreamed of a man with yellow eyes and he told you that I--"

Dean flinched. "How--"

"He told you that I was a monster, a killer. Maybe that I'd killed Lily and the others. He told you that and you believed him." Sam's gaze was clear and his voice was soft, relentless.

Dean closed his eyes. "I don't know. I just wanted to know for sure, okay? What was on the other side of that door-- I needed to know."

"You're not the first one. Azazel," Sam said before he had a chance to get the question out. "It's one of the things he does. Dreams. It was-- he likes climbing into them and making me believe a lot of things." When Sam looked up his eyes were sharp and serious. "It wasn't your fault. Not totally."

"It was my fault I believed him," Dean whispered. "I believed a dream. I know better. You trusted me."

"I did. It was... stupid of me. You didn't know me," Sam said. His mouth curled up and he looked away. All Dean wanted was for him not to look like that. "You don't know me. I could be every kind of horrible thing. In a way you're right too. They did die because of me. The demons that killed them were looking for me."

"You're wrong," Dean said, quick and sharp. He wanted to drag Sam closer, pull him right through the bars so he could hold on. "I know exactly who you are, I knew from the minute I saw you take down that demon."

"Sure," Sam muttered, but he didn't pull away. "Dean, I--"

"You're a hunter, Sam. You're like me. You're like me and I'm going to get you out of here," Dean said, before Sam did anything crazy like try to explain or talk about it. "I'm like, a ninja at lock-picking."

Sam made a sour face and shook his head. "He'll know if I leave. Azazel is strong, man, and I don't have exactly have a weapon or surprise on my side. He'll know and he'll hunt me down."

Dean glared at him. All of this shit and now Sam was going to lay down for this? "Wait, what, so you're just going to take that for an answer? Just like... give in or something? You're the guy that had that fucking demon locked in your bedroom closet."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and that worked out really good as a long term solution. Now he gets to keep me in a cage until I'm so twisted around I'm ready to-- " He stopped, red-faced and shook his head.

"Ready to what?" Dean demanded. "Ready to what Sam?" Sam just looked at the ground and didn't answer him, didn't even look up to meet Dean's glare and get properly intimidated. "It doesn't matter anyway. I'm getting you out of here and he is not going to find you, got it?"

Sam's gaze flicked up from under his eyelashes. He sighed but after what seemed like way too long, he nodded like he'd decided something. "Well, if we don't try we won't know it doesn't work," he finally said, even if he didn't sound like he believed. Sam held still, body tighter then anything Dean had ever seen, and waited while Dean picked the lock of his cage, anyway, and let himself be pulled out and into his feet and hustled into what Dean wasn't calling a hug because-- girly shit, actually.

Even if it was a hug and he had Sam's body close enough to him that he could smell Sam under the blood and dried fear sweat. Here and with him. "I've got you," he whispered. "You're fine, Sammy. I'm sorry as hell I got you into this, but now I am definitely getting you out."

"Yeah," Sam mumbled into his ear, warm breath on Dean's skin. "Let's get on that out of here thing now, okay?"

The corridors were as empty as they'd been before. Wherever Azazel and his buddies were it wasn't here. It made Dean half wonder why Sam hadn't taken a shot at busting out himself. There had to be something he could have improvised into a lock pick given the time, right? Sam's face was so narrow and tight, Dean couldn't have made himself ask, though.

"And you said this would be hard," he did crow once they were out in the sunlight, the Impala gleaming under the blue sky like a racehorse, ready to go.

"I said he'd know if I left," Sam muttered, so softly that Dean almost couldn't make out the words at all, couldn't tell if he'd heard Sam right. "We... my mom, she... I guess it doesn't matter now." When he looked Sam in the face, Sam had his chin up and his eyes closed, face turned up to the sunlight like he was soaking it in.

Dean clapped him on the shoulder, ignoring the tremor of muscle under his hand. "C'mon, man," he said. "Let's leave this place in the dust."

Dean unlocked the car and all but ushered Sam inside, barely waiting to hear the locks click closed before he had the key in the ignition and he was out of there. He couldn't tell for sure, but he thought Sam breathed easier when they got out of sight. "He won't get you again," Dean said. "We'll stop him."

"You and me?" Sam asked. There was a note of something sharp and dark in his tone. The bruises on his cheeks stood out like livid little accusations. "You don't know what it cost to trap him the last time. Don't run around offering to help with something you don't understand."

Dean winced and tried to cover it with a shrug. "You can tell me about it and I'll give understanding a try," he said. "Your friend Ruby told me some things already."

Sam's neck jerked so that he was facing Dean. "Ruby?" he repeated. His eyes were narrowed and dark. "What did Ruby tell you?"

"She told me how to find you," Dean admitted softly. It hurt to say he wouldn't have had a clue on his own, that he wouldn't even have known where to start to look. Sam's expression started to soften until Dean managed to spill out the rest of the truth. "She told me she was a demon. Showed me, I guess."

That made Sam flinch, but just for a second, so fast Dean almost missed it. "Without Ruby I'd have ended up in Azazel's cage a long time ago," he said, short and sharp. "I mean. I'd still be there."

"Okay," Dean said.

"You have no fucking right to judge," Sam went on like Dean hadn't said anything. "She helped me. Nobody else helped me, Dean."

"I said, okay," Dean snapped, but Sam just shook his head.

"Nobody else even tried," Sam mumbled.

"Well, I will," Dean said. Soft and questioning, when he'd meant to be loud, certain.

Sam huffed a laugh. "Yeah, I guess you will. Don't worry about it, okay? It's not actually your fault. Nothing that happens is really going to be your fault."

"You sound like you expect to lose," Dean said. He stared at the wheel, the road ahead. Just seeing Sam out of the corners of his eyes. Sam didn't answer him.

Dean drove in silence until his shoulders ached and his eyelids felt like they were made of glue. The clock on the dash said it was three am and Sam was snoring softly beside him. Dean would have kept going anyway, should have. Should have pulled over in the shoulder and caught a nap if he needed one, but Sam looked uncomfortable and smaller than such a tall guy had the right to be curled up in the seat beside him. He looked hurt and a real bed would have to help with that.

Dean pulled off the highway at the next blue food and lodging sign and into the driveway of a battered motel just off the main road. It wasn't the dumbest mistake he'd made since meeting Sam, but he had a really high bar on those right from the word go.

He didn't even realize it was a mistake until he got the room and ushered a sleepy, groaning Sam inside, helping him pull off his boots and crawl under the faded sheets before tucking him in. Sam looked worn down to nothing and Dean wouldn't have been surprised if his own face showed the same thing in the mirror. He didn't look, though, just crawled into bed next to Sam, still wearing all his clothes.

He was asleep before his eyes were fully closed.

He woke up to find hell in the room with them. Sam was on his feet, hands in front of him like he could ward it off. He had Dean's gun in his grip and fuck knew how he'd gotten his hands on it, how he'd even known where to look.

The thing he was pointing it at just laughed at him like it was nothing. "You know that little human toy won't hurt me, why are you even trying, my boy?" Azazel's form was different this time, about as different as you could get from the wizened, whimpering creature Dean had seen in Sam's closet what felt like a hundred years ago.

Now he was a man in his forties, full fleshed and smirking like the hero of an action movie in a torn shirt. Sam backed up, eyes and mouth gone tight like just being in the same room with him hurt.

"Sam, Sam, Sam," Azazel said, shaking his finger. When his hand moved, so did the gun, slamming out of Sam's hand and skittering into the bathroom before the door slammed behind it. "If you run away like that, I'll start to think you don't like me."

"Yeah. Funny, right?" Sam muttered. Dean was on his feet before he even knew what he was going to do.

Dean didn't even pause, just pushed himself in front of Sam like he was doing something useful. He managed to stand there for all of the count of ten before Azazel made a gesture, sharp and fast and then suddenly the floor was falling away from Dean and the next second the back of his head was being introduced to the ground.

The world spun on its axis and he groaned, trying to blink his way back to coherence. He could smell blood and he thought it might be his, but there was no time for that. He forced his eyes open, forced himself to his feet.

When the haze cleared Azazel was grinning at him. He had a hand on Sam's throat, sharp fingernails pressed against the pulse point. "Sam and I are going to go now, Dean," he said, cheerful as hell. When Sam jerked back a fingertip sunk into his skin and a spill of blood slipped down the line of his throat. He swallowed visibly, making the blood run faster.

"Fuck you. Fuck you. Leave him alone," Dean hissed as he stumbled toward them, hands in front of him. "Leave him."

Azazel tilted his head. "That's the one thing I'm not planning to do," he said. "And I shouldn't have to. He's mine, Dean, he's always been mine-- I'll bet he never bothered to mention that to you. But, as a one time special offer, since, well, if it weren't for you, I'd still be hanging in Sammy here's closet like a slab of meat, I'm going to let _you_ go."

"Wha--" Dean began.

"Dean, get out of here," Sam stammered hoarsely at the same time. He held out his hands, hands that shook, like he could push Dean away. "He means it, you can go, you can leave. Run."

Azazel's yellow eyes gleamed as he pulled Sam closer up against himself. "Yes, Dean. Run." He smiled suddenly while Dean made a helpless gesture. He was supposed to save Sam, wasn't he? Hadn't he promised he would? "But, oh, there is one more thing you may want to know about our Sam here." Dean swayed miserably on his feet, shaking his head and staring into Sam's wide, scared eyes. "He's not just a great fuck. He's also your one and only brother."

Dean made a noise he hardly recognized. Or maybe it was Sam making that sound. A low, hurt sounding noise, deep enough to vibrate Dean's bones. "You're lying," he whispered. "I don't have a brother. My brother died with my mom." An old story, one ground in deep. Baby Sammy in his cradle and Mom, Mommy, Mama, gone. Disappeared. Dean's stomach churned with sick, thinking of that baby and comparing it to the man he'd held. He couldn't compare, couldn't. They couldn't be the same.

Sam was shaking his head over and over, never mind the damage it did to his skin where Azazel touched. Sam's Mom didn't die in a fire. She died in the dark, Sam said so.

"If you don't believe me, ask your daddy, Dean-o," Azazel said with malicious mock concern in his tone. Like a high school kid doing a PSA. "I can see he lied to you, but he might tell you the real truth if you asked him nice enough, sugar coated it. Ask him about what he did with-- or should I say _to_\-- his sweet baby boy and his beautiful wife after he caught me in the nursery with them. Ask him about what it felt like to throw poor little Sam away to the wolves."

"Dean, don't--" Sam began, but the sharp edge pricking his throat cut him off. Sam to the wolves. Mom. Dad wouldn't have, it had to be lying. Dad loved Mom, he loved Sammy, Dean gritted his teeth. There was no other thing this could be, just demon lies.

"I'm the wolf your dad threw your brother to, by the way," Azazel said. "In case you were wondering. I'm taking him and if you're smart you won't go looking for him again either. Because I'm letting you go this time. But next time? Next time I'm going to chop you into pieces and resurrect myself a nice Zoroastrian rite and bury you in the sky. "

"You're the one that's getting buried," Dean hissed. "I'm gonna find you. You won't get to hurt him."

Azazel laughed out loud. "Hurt him?" he crooned. He leaned forward, just a bit, and licked sloppily and theatrically at the trickle of blood running down the back of Sam's neck. "Dean, that's the last thing I want to do. I want to give him the whole world for a play toy and I will. Just as soon as he learns to obey." He did something behind Sam, something Dean couldn't see from where he lay, scattered on the floor, like a useless limp dick asshole. All Dean knew was whatever it was it made Sam scream, short and sharp.

"Fuck you," Dean howled and went for them, on his feet before he knew it, cracking through whatever the restraints Azazel had on him. Cracking through to Sam, Sammy who rested so sweetly in his arms just a little while ago-- Sammy. Baby brother Sammy. Didn't even matter if it was a lie. "Fuck you."

Dean got so close he could almost taste Sam's breath before Azazel raised his hand again. So close, when he didn't even know what to do, but stare into Sam's huge, endless eyes. "Good night, Dean-o," the demon said. The air moved under Dean's feet and he hit the wall behind him so hard that he lost the world for a few minutes.

When he woke up, Azazel was gone and Sam with him. Dean curled up, knees to his chest, and wept like he was four years old again, without mother, without brother, with Daddy empty and unseeing, like a plastic mannequin of a man beside him. He wept like he knew no one was going to hear him.

For a long time, no one did. Then, after forever, his phone rang in his pocket, his dad's familiar ring tone overpowering the buzzing in Dean's ears. His sobs stifled out while he fumbled for the phone, whimpering when he moved wrong.

"Dean," his dad asked, sounding sharp and scared, like he had when Dean was a little kid and a strega had almost climbed inside and swallowed him whole. "Dean, son, where are you? Where have you been? You don't disappear off the radar like this, not without telling me."

Dean shook his head but that just made the buzzing louder. "Where you sent me. To Binghamton. To find out what was taking those kids." It made sense. "To Sam. I found out about Sam, Dad."

"What?" the fear in Dad's voice came through, thicker, stronger. "Sam? Dean, I haven't spoken to you since you were about to take down a ghost down in Granville. That's when you disappeared off the fucking radar. Where the hell are you?"

"What?" Dean mumbled. The world hurt. His dad's voice hurt. "No, that's not true. I found Sam, I found him. You said he was dangerous. You said. You said you sent me."

"Dean," his dad sounded angry now, but Dean could still almost taste the fear, thick and sour, underneath that. "For fuck's sake, I have no idea what you're talking about. You know Sam is gone, he died when he was a baby with... with Mary. Where the hell are you?"

"Dad," he whispered, soft like a little kid. Like a little kid asking the questions he'd been too scared of before. "Daddy. What does gone mean? What happened to Mom? What happened to Sammy? What did you do?"

There was silence on the other end, just his father's harsh, shuddering breathing. For a long time, Dean thought he wouldn't say anything at all. Then. Then he did. "Dean," he whispered, voice cracking on it. "I-- you know what happened, the thing that killed your mother took-- killed him. Why are you asking me now?"

"Killed him?" Dean murmured into the phone. "Or took him? And what about Mom? Which was it, Dad? Killed or took? What did you do?"

Another silence, painful, condemning. Dean could hear his own heart pounding in time with his head. Everything hurt. Everything. "She died, I saw her die. Your mother died and I had two sons," Dad told him, hoarse and slow. "That day I only had the chance to save one. Only you."

Dean heard the sob rip out of him. Save me now, he wanted to say. I need you to come and save me now. Instead, he forced himself to breathe. The pain wasn't so bad, this was nothing close to the worst he'd ever been hurt on a hunt. Nothing close. "How do you know she died?"

It sounded like his dad might be crying. "I saw her, Dean. I saw her burn. I'm sorry."

Dean didn't say, liar. Not now, not yet. He didn't say it out loud, but it was pounding in his gut. He'd trusted his dad, like Sam had trusted him. The world was full of all these fucking liars and he was the worst one. "I need to know how to fight a demon. A major demon," he said instead.

"What's that have to do with Sam?" his dad asked, voice gone sharp and uncertain. Dean didn't even have to see him to smell the line of bull developing in his head. To know Dad was getting ready to grope for some kind of lie to cover up fuck knew what.

Dean closed his eyes. "Nothing," he said, lying himself, flat and easy. "It has to do with the demon that's been making people disappear. Calls himself Azazel. Mean anything to you?" He isn't surprised to hear the tearing breath on the other end of the line.

"Dean," his dad whispered, and now he sounded like he was getting ready to order. Or to beg."Where are you? Tell me what the hell you're doing and I'll get you help, I'll be there to help you."

Dean frowned through the buzzing in his brain. "Help me how? Lie to me? Save me? What did you do to Sam, Dad?"

There was a long, shallow breath on the other end of the line. "Azazel... your brother. This is way beyond anything you're trained for. Get out of there. Tell me where you are and I'll make sure you get out of there. Right now. Full stop. This is out of your league and you'll get yourself killed or worse."

"Sure, Dad," Dean muttered. He felt like laughing even more than sobbing now. "Whatever you say. Just first, answer me one question. Just one."

"Dean?" His dad sounded like he was begging for something. It was an awful sound, the worst one in the world. Dean tried not to hear it.

"Don't Dean me," Dean mumbled. "One question, okay? Just one. Why the fuck would you mention Azazel and my brother, my-- and Sam in the same breath like they have anything to do with each other?"

There was hoarse breathing on the other end of the line, tight and rough. Dean could almost taste it. "I'm sorry," his dad whispered. "If I had known-- I am so sorry, Dean, and I will explain this to you. I will make sure the whole... situation is taken care of. But now I need you to be safe, I need you to live. Prayers and holy water can't help you, not against Azazel."

Dean slammed his phone closed and threw it into the wall. He lay where he'd fallen for too long, wasting time, tears leaking down his face. Then he went back to the car, swallowed a handful of pain pills with tepid bottled water and drove.

\  
Azazel could have taken Sam anywhere, but if Dean knew one thing it was to start from the beginning. He barely took the time to tape up his ribs because any time he took was time that a demon had Sam. Any time he wasted.

How was he supposed to stop a demon when he got where he was going? One he couldn't even make flinch, one that Sam-- Sam who killed demons-- couldn't fight. The question kept buzzing around in his head, fierce and rough, in a voice that sounded like his dad's. That sounded like Azazel's, telling him he was going to chop Dean into pieces.

A threat, okay, he could handle threats. He could die. A thousand ghosts and monsters in a thousand abattoirs could have chopped Dean to pieces since he was old enough to hunt on his own. He had always known he was going to fall hunting, die on his feet. Get slaughtered by one of a thousand monsters and none of them even had Sam, Sam who was his _his brother_. None of them had everything.

On the way back he stopped at a church, a blocky wooden building coated in white wash with a cracked and empty parking lot out front. He didn't know why, not really, just the vague idea from what his dad had said that holy water and prayer was going to do something about demons even if it wouldn't help him with the big boss. He didn't even know if you needed faith to make that work or if it was like a magic trick or rocksalt and fast hands was all it took.

It didn't matter-- the church was empty and locked up tight and Dean didn't have faith anyway, not in God. Not in God and his dad had screwed him over. Screwed Sam over. Dean pounded on the door with his fists a few times, but he didn't break it down. He just stumbled away, crawled into the backseat of the Impala and fell asleep wrapped up around himself, huddled up tight.

When he woke up it was dark outside and there were fireflies at the window, luminous and bright, staring in at him. The church door was flung wide open and inside there was a choir singing, music pouring out. Not great stuff, just a bunch of kids goofing off, but their voices were high and sweet and Dean closed his eyes and listened. He wondered what a demon would say to something like that.

What would work if holy water didn't? He rubbed his hand against his forehead and remembered what Sam had said. _You glow right here. Like you're blessed. _

"Mom," Dean whispered out loud. "Hope your blessings are still working out for me."

He waited just like that for a few seconds, all singing kids and fireflies. When the place had emptied out, he went inside, popping the lock and kneeling before the altar like he was going to pray. There was an icon of a woman's face, soft and indistinct, with pale yellow hair floating around her. But Dean's mom hadn't been like that, according to Sam. Not soft.

She'd been a fighter, just like him. He had her blessing, that would have to be enough. He gritted his teeth, bowed his head to the icon and walked outside. He climbed into the front seat of his car, popped some more pain pills, and drove back to New York, strung out and shaking, seeing nothing but Sam in his head, the expression on Sam's face with Azazel's hands all over him.

The house looked just the same as it had the first time when Dean stepped out of his car, fists at his side and a shot gun full of rocksalt on his back, but with his hands empty.

The hall was the same, dusty, with that trail of footprints. One set were of his own boots. Dean hurried down the hall, leaving another trail. Somehow it was harder to walk this way than it had been before. His head ached, and his pulse pounded like he was walking through something thicker and harder than air. At first he could walk almost normally, but after a while he found himself clinging to the walls, pushing himself off against furniture, anything, anything to get some momentum, to let him move through the thick tightness of the air.

Before long he was on his knees, crawling, teeth gritted and cheeks bulging with the effort. He went anyway, nothing was going to stop him, not from getting to Sam.

Seeing Sam again, chained in that fucking cage, was a twist to his gut. _Mine, my Sam_, his body screamed. That recognition he'd had right from the first all twisted up with the knowledge of Sam's cock, Sam's mouth, the sounds that Sam made like the world was ending.

Sam, his baby brother. His Mom's baby, tucked up close and sweet smelling. Mom, who had blessed him, who'd died to protect Sam.

"Sammy," Dean said out loud, voice cracking. "I came. I came back to get you." Sam just stared at him like he had no idea what he was was seeing. His eyes were hollow and dark. Dean scratched the back of his neck and stared back. "Um. I didn't actually think I could get in this easily to be honest."

That made Sam move, sharp and sudden, jerking up against the bars so fast that Dean flinched back like Sam was going to jump him. The cage held though and Sam glared through it. "His wards should have kept you out," he said. "He said they would."

"Sammy?" Dean asked. "They didn't, though. I got in, okay?"

"Godamnit, Dean!" Sam screamed, and fists wrapped tight in the bars, like it would bend against the onslaught. "Do you not get it? If you got in it must be... must be because he didn't ward the place against you. He didn't ward the place because he had no idea you were god damned suicidally dumb enough to come back here. He will kill you, do you not get that? And he'll laugh. He'll make me watch."

Dean shook his head. "Maybe he will and maybe he won't," he said.

Sam glared at him like he'd won an award for stupid and was giving it over to be hung on the fridge. Dean had the vague worry Sam's face might stick like that, but before he had the chance to say anything, Sam turned away from him. "I'm not helping you commit suicide, you dumb fuck," Sam hissed to the wall behind him. "No one else is going to die for me."

"I'm not leaving you here," Dean muttered, already reaching into his pockets for his picks. "I'm gonna help you whether you like it or not." The lock was easy enough to take down, Azazel hadn't even bothered to change that. The only thing that was different this time was Sam, huddled in the other end of the cage as far away from Dean as he could get without imprinting iron on his skin.

"Your being a martyr doesn't help me," Sam whispered when Dean reached for him, when he caught Sam's bicep in his hand. Sam jerked away and when he spoke again there was a low, pained quality in his voice and he was pleading. Begging Dean. "Why is that so hard for you to understand? He's going to use you against me, Dean. If you do this, you're going to make it worse."

Dean just shook his head. "Don't. Sam. I fucking love you, okay?" He didn't know when that had become true. If it had been when he first saw Sam take down a demon, bold and brilliant, like the perfect hunter or the first time Sam sucked his dick like he was starved for it. If it had been when he'd kissed his baby brother's forehead for the last time, scent of milk and powder and mom's arms tight around him. If he was a sick enough freak that it was both things.

Sam's shoulders just shook and he bowed his head away from Dean. "You don't know what you're talking about. If you loved me, you wouldn't throw yourself away," he hissed. When Dean put another hand on that tense shoulder Sam finally jerked back around. There were tears running down his cheeks, wet and messy and his face was red, twisted up and miserable.

"Mom..." Dean started and didn't know why.

"Mom died. Selfish freak," Sam said and Dean flinched back. "I believe you are my brother. You're just like... you're just fucking like her. She said she would protect me and she died, like you're going to _die_. Nobody helped me."

Dean shook his head. Mom. He didn't want to think about that. He couldn't, not and do... this. Any of it.  
"Not now, Sam. Later, we'll figure it out later, now just get out of there and let's go," he said, softly, like he already knew asking was futile. Sam just shrugged and shook his head, the tears still coming, messy and silent, like he didn't know how to cry any other way.

Dean did the only thing any red blooded guy in a bizarre incestuous relationship with a crazy person could do. He shot Sam in the side with a shell full of rocksalt and dragged him out in a fireman's carry while he was too stunned to do anything about it but moan.

"We'll think of something," he muttered to Sam, assuming Sam was listening, as he lugged what was 6'4'' of really fucking solid guy. "We'll go to like... a church. Can demons go into churches? They can't can they? And then we'll... something. Azazel isn't gonna get you."

Dean got all the way to the threshold, panting with the effort, even with Sam laying like a deadweight in his grip. He could see the sunshine, see the Impala gleaming black and sweet and safe on the curb, and all he had to do was get there.

He heard the laughter before he saw Azazel. Low and deep, making the walls vibrate. Then he was there, same body as before, same dumbass smirk twisting his mouth. "What's this? A pretty pigeon trying to roost in my coop and steal my toys?" Azazel crooned. "How did you get in here anyway?"

Dean just glared and clutched Sam closer. "I walked," he said.

"So I see." Azazel smirked and then walked forward, so fast that he was right there in Dean's face between blinks. He pressed his thumb against Dean's forehead, hard enough to make Dean wince. "Mary, Mary quite contrary kissed you here, didn't she? Kissed you and blessed you against the dark. And you walked right through my wards to reach her baby boy."

His mom. Azazel was talking about his mom. Sam's mom, who died for Sam. "She was better than you, wasn't she? Even dead, she's better," he spat.

Azazel laughed out loud. "You mean she's deader than me. Deader and deader. Too bad. I really liked her. I really enjoyed you too, Dean, and honestly, I'll miss you just as much."

"I'm going to kill you," Dean spat. "So don't worry about missing me."

"You, kill me? You aren't very bright, are you?" Azazel asked. "What did I tell you would happen if you tried this little stunt again, Dean-o?"

Dean just stood there, swaying on his feet, stumbling under the weight of Sam's body. For some reason all he could hear was Sam's desperate and urgent voice. _He will kill you, do you not get that? And he'll laugh._

"You can't have him," Dean managed to spit out. "I will never let you have him."

Azazel laughed. "I'll tell you what, and this is only because I like you so much. You really remind me of your mom. How about your last sight can be of him, just like hers was? You get to close your eyes and die while you look at your baby brother and know exactly how much I do have him."

He moved so fast he had his arm twisted around Dean's body between blinks. "By the way," he crooned. "Just so you know, a church wouldn't keep me out. Not faith, not prayer, not anything in your pale arsenal. Even Sam can barely stand against me-- nothing you could have done would have kept me out."

Dean felt everything move under him and he was flying backwards, Sam dumped in a heap where he'd stood. Azazel smirked, grabbed Sam's loose wrist and hauled him along, dragging him across the ground, ignoring the sounds he made.

He thought he lost time, didn't know where it went. Maybe it vanished into the black hole of just knowing, knowing how badly he fucked up, knowing that if he hadn't been here, none of this would ever have happened.

He came to strapped to a table. Just an ordinary, solid dining room type table, heavy enough not to creak under his weight. His hands and feet were cuffed with his legs spread apart like... he didn't even want to think about it. He could barely raise his head, but when he did the first thing he saw was Sam, hanging from the wall by the wrists, dressed in shreds of what must have been his clothes. There was blood dripping through the rags and Dean didn't want to think about it, tried so hard not to, to look Sam in the eyes instead of the damage done.

Sam was looking back at him, lip bitten and bloody, eyes huge and wide like all he wanted to do is drink Dean in. "You're a dumb fuck," Sam whispered and he forced what looked like a smile out. "I wish to God you weren't here, but I'm glad I met you."

"Why?" Dean asked, shaking his head. "I got you into this-- you had him locked up until I came along."

"Yeah, well," Sam muttered and the smile got wider. "Life sucks that way sometimes." He bit his lip again and then licked the blood off. The smile faded. "I'll do what I can for you, Dean," he whispered. "I swear."

There was the sound of clapping coming from the corner and Azazel stepped into the room. "Good show!" he said. "Very dramatic. I give it a standing ovation. Just one thing I'd like to know, how the hell are you going to do that, Sam?"

Sam shuddered, hard and visible and Dean wanted to shake his head and shut him up, but he couldn't. "What you want," Sam said. His voice was rocksteady and worn out. "I'll give it to you. I'll be your... your general. Lead your armies."

"No--" Dean said, jerking up against his chains, hissing as they bit into skin. "Not for me. You won't. I'll die for you, Sam. I'm willing to, I am."

Azazel just shook his head and stepped up to Dean's table, still smiling at Sam. "You know, I think our Dean is right. You won't. If he's alive and walking, you'll have... hope, won't you." His mouth twisted with distaste around that word. "And besides, I promised Dean a nice sky burial and I always keep my promises." He rubbed one hand over Dean's shoulder and Dean flinched. Azazel stroked on thumb across his cheek in response. "In case you didn't study your history, that would be where I chop you up and leave the meat exposed for the vultures. Really appetizing. Maybe I'll chain Sam up next to you for a while so he can watch."

"Don't," Sam whispered. "Don't. Whatever you want."

Azazel titled his head, still petting Dean's skin, making him want to crawl inside himself to escape the touch. "I think you'll agree to do whatever I want just to get away after a few days cuffed next to rotting meat. Maybe the vultures and the crows won't be too particular and they'll take a bite of you too, hmm, Sammy?"

"Please," Sam said. There was blood pouring down his wrists where he fought the chains. "Do you want me to beg? I'll beg. Do you want me to swear? Tell me the oath, I'll swear."

"No," Dean said, but Azazel's thumb was pressed over his throat now and the word was cut off, powerless.

"For now all I want you to do is watch, Sam," Azazel said. There was a knife in his hand, sharp and gleaming sweet. It took Dean a second to recognize it from his haze. It was Sam's knife, Sam's demon killing knife in a demon's hands. From somewhere very far away, someone sobbed. Dean thought it was Sam because his own voice was caught up and trapped.

Dean thought he couldn't make any noise at all until the knife bit his flesh, slow and deep, absolutely steady as a surgeon. Slow enough not to just knock him out with the shock of it. Azazel wanted him awake. That was when he found out he could still scream. He would die for Sam, he was willing, he was, it was just that it hurt so much, so damned much as the knife tore in and ripped him apart.

He could see Sam's eyes in front of him, so wide they took up all the world that wasn't pain and he tried to say it through his screams. I love you. I love you. This is for you.

Before the world went gray he stopped screaming at all. From somewhere very far away, he thought he saw Sam's mouth moving. There was ringing in his ears, but he thought he heard words.

"Bind you," Sam said. "I'll bind your hands not to touch him, not to touch anyone. Bind your spirit from human shape. Bind your mouth from speaking. Bind your power from affecting the human world. Bind you to hell for as long as my power holds. It won't be easy for you to crawl out."

And Azazel, but not laughing, not any more. "You can't. You don't have any power I didn't give you. Ruby can't get close enough to lend you hers now. You can't."

Dean couldn't see any more but he could imagine Sam's mouth in a curved, predatory smile, a hunter's smile. "Blood sacrifices have power," Sam said. "A willing blood sacrifice. Dean gave that to me."

"You can't," Azazel hissed. "It won't free you, you can't bind me away from you. I'll drag you down to hell with me if you bind me. I'll drag you down and your Dean will still be dead."

Sam laughed. There was no joy in it and if Dean could have he'd have reached out to touch Sam's face, to make it better. Somehow. Any how. "I can deal with that," Sam said. "Can you?" Then the world fell away and Dean wasn't sure if he died. It felt like he must have died.

\  
Dead people didn't wake up, but Dean did. His head ached like he was dying and he could feel it pouring through him, pain like waves of light. Dying, not dead. He was still on that table where Azazel had left him, still reeking of his own blood and guts, pain eating him up from the inside, but his eyes were open and he was breathing.

When he forced his eyes to open he could see that Ruby was kneeling above him, a glowing needle held between her fingertips, shining with a light so bright he had to whimper and shut his eyes against it.

"Shut up," Ruby hissed. "And let me heal you. Believe me, this is not easy. It's not what my powers were designed for."

Dean moaned, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn't exactly move, never mind object. Sam, he wanted to ask. Where was Sam? What was going on? It was almost like she heard him, because between the grayed out flashes of pain while she put him back together, Ruby talked to him.

"You thrice-damned idiot, he broke the wards and called me, right before Azazel dragged him down. Called me to you, like you're worth it," she muttered and twisted in the needle with a particular vicious jerk. An entire line of knife wounds vanished when she bit the thread off.

At some point, Dean thought he could talk. The pain had faded from all consuming to something on the edge of his senses, throbbing through.

"Sam?" he croaked.

Ruby glared down at him. "Hell," she said. "As best as I can figure, he's in hell. I don't even know where, so don't ask me. If I could get a rescue mission going I'd be fucking doing that instead of wasting my time with you."

"How can I find out?" Dean asked. His voice sounded better already, more natural.

Ruby pressed a bloody palm to her forehead, streaking it with Dean's sweat and viscera. She looked tired, almost human. "If I knew that, I'd be doing it," she whispered. "You think this is easy for me?"

"You're a demon," Dean said, like that should explain everything. She looked like a woman, worn to the bone and angry.

"We went through a lot together, Sam and I. We-- well, demons can love," Ruby said. "Hell, we do a better job of it than some people. Your father did a great job abandoning Sam to our tender mercies."

Dean closed his eyes, wanting to say there was no way his dad had done something like that, not his dad, not John Winchester, not to Sam. The truth was he didn't know anymore. He didn't know a goddamned thing anymore. "I have to help him," he said. Ruby sighed and let her hands drop down against him, just pressing for a second.

"Why are you really here? I mean, you don't think you finding Sam after all this time was some crazy ass coincidence, do you?" she asked, serious as hell, like the questions even made sense. "Did someone send you? Tell me the truth."

Dean shook his head. "I don't know what you want to hear. My dad--" then he stopped. It couldn't be, didn't mean anything, but-- "There was this crazy old lady in the Granville Assisted Living Facility. I killed a ghost and she told me to call her Grandma. She told me there was something good waiting for me but not to mess it up. She--"

"Holy fuck, that's it," Ruby spat. She grabbed Dean's hand and gave him this half horrified, half wondering look. "I mean, describe her. Tell me what she looked like."

Dean didn't know what else to do, so he did it. Ruby's eyes just got wider as he spoke and then she was shaking her head by the time he said, "And then she said she owed me a favor. She was kind of nuts, you know?"

That was when she lost it. "Dean, you ignorant fuck head. Baba Yaga owes you a favor and you're shuffling your feet. Go and ask her for help."

"Baba Yaga?" Dean asked, feeling brick dumb, but then he'd had the excuse of getting cut open by a demon and healed by another one. "Like the old Russian fairy tale witch Baba Yaga?"

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Yeah," she said. "Exactly like that with a mix of pagan deity thrown in for shits and giggles."

"That's going to beat Azazel," Dean said, shaking his head. Blood and pain and his own guts and the look in Sam's eyes versus... what? "A fairy tale? I mean, she was just some crazy old lady."

Ruby smacked him lightly over the back of his head. "And you're just a dumb muscle head, right? Or maybe this is when you prove me wrong, how about it?"

Dean made a noise and ducked away. "I'll go," he said. "For Sam. But if you're lying to me..."

Ruby gave him a shove. "If I wanted to hurt you, all I would have had to do was nothing. You'd already be dead," she said. Dean shrugged his shoulders and looked away. He followed her out of the house and into the sunlight.

Before he climbed back into the car, Ruby pressed a knife into Dean's palm, hilt first. He stared at it blankly. It looked like the one Sam had before, the one Azazel had taken from him.

"It won't work for you," she said, before he could say anything. "It'll turn in your hand if you try to use it to fight. Won't work for anyone but Sam. I made it special to live while he does and die if he does so nothing can take it from him."

"Oh," Dean muttered, staring down at the shining, watery steel. The weight felt good in his hands, almost like a living thing. Like there was a pulse pounding beneath it. Sam's pulse. "If he dies--"

"If he dies, you'll know. It will die too." She smiled faintly. "Bring him back, Dean, if you can."

Dean nodded. He stared at her over the glow of the weapon. "You really love him, huh?"

Ruby nodded. There was a curve in her mouth and the faint light of something in her eyes. "I had a brother too once," she said.

"I didn't know demons had families," Dean said. He knew he was still staring, but couldn't stop.

Ruby shook her head. Her dark hair covered her eyes, smooth and shiny, hiding everything away. "They don't," she said. "Don't be ridiculous. Now, go."

Dean went.

Dean didn't know what to expect at the Granville Assisted Living Center. Fuck if he even knew crazy old Grandma's name or how to find her. It's not like he could walk up to the counter and ask the receptionist if he can go and see Baba Yaga, not unless he liked his straitjackets done up super tight.

That was why it was damned lucky that when he walked in the front door she was sitting in an overstuffed chair in the sunlight, drinking lemonade from a tall glass and watching him come in.

"Hello, Dean Winchester." She laughed at him, a throaty sounding cackle, like a witch in a comic book movie. "You look gloomy. Didn't I tell you not to fuck it up, boy? Now look at you, a hole in your guts it took a demon to sew closed and no Campbell."

"You're really her," Dean breathed. "I mean, Baba Yaga. Ruby was right."

Grandma smirked. "Ruby is usually right, when she tells the truth. It's just a question of knowing when she'd prefer to lie instead. Now, sit down and tell me again about just how badly you messed up when I warned you not to."

Dean blinked and took a step back, looking around to see if anyone was listening to them. No one else in the hall even spared them a second glance, like old Grandma talked crazy shit really loud all the time. Hell, maybe she did.

He sat down in the chair next to her and stared down at his feet. "Yeah," he said. "I guess you did say that. You, um, also said you owed me a favor," he added in a quick mumble, looking up at her from under his eyelashes.

She cackled at that, loud and long, until Dean wanted to wince and cover his ears. "Silly boy. Maybe I already did you your favor. Who is it you think sent you to Binghamton to meet your Sam Campbell?"

Dean blinked and just sat there for a second while she grinned at him. "I have a job for you and it could be a complicated one. You'll have to be careful," she said, but when her lips moved it was Dad's voice coming out of them, tight and strained sounding, like he was tired.

Dean didn't know whether to scream or punch himself in the face. He'd have settled for punching her in the face, actually, but his bones ached and somehow he knew that would be an unbelievably awful idea. "That's why Dad had no idea where I was," Dean muttered, covering his face with his palms. "It really wasn't him."

"There you are," she said, in her own voice this time. "You've had your favor. Now hurry along and stop bothering me."

"What?" Dean snapped out, everything smart in his head that had been keeping him shut up suddenly fizzling out. "What the fuck is wrong with you, you crazy old broad? You... you pretended to be my Dad. And, fuck that was you-- you told me shit to make me think that Sam was the bad guy. You-- you--"

"Me, me," she said and smirked. "You're a very rude boy. In the old days I'd have put you in the stew pot until your flesh fell off and shined your bones to make a fence."

"Try it," Dean muttered. "Can't be any worse than what your buddy Azazel did to me. You really want him to keep Sam? Make him his... his general and shit?"

She tapped her shoe against the wooden floor and rocked back in her chair. "Well, come to think of it, I don't, and that's why you're still alive. Old yellow eyes has never been a friend to me."

"So help me kill him," Dean growled. "Then you never need to see my rude ass again, how about it?"

"You don't have the power to fight Azazel, never mind to kill him," she said, shaking her head. The she frowned, looked him over like she could see right through him, like she had an x-ray machine zeroed into his bones. "That's all right, though. The knife at your side can do it, if you get into the right hands."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Like whose hands," he said, like Ruby hadn't already told him. He didn't know what he'd expected, but it wasn't for Grandma to kick him in the shin with her boot.

"Don't be an idiot, boy," she said. "I know a demon gift when I see when, and if that can be wielded by any hand's but one I don't know the demon that made it. Now, come upstairs with me and we'll see about getting you what you need."

Dean was that close to just telling her to suck it, but when he closed his eyes all he could see was Azazel leaning over him with a knife laughing and laughing and that stricken, shattered look in Sam's eyes. Sam was in hell.

Dean followed her out of the room and up the stairs, to a narrow, closed off room at the end of the hall where the light didn't seem to want to filter in.

"Now then," she said. She started to rustle through the clutter of books and little bags of stones and what looked like grounded up grass. "What you'll need is to outrun Azazel until Sam has the strength to destroy him with that knife you have."

"Outrun? What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means something no mortal transportation can do. Move faster than a demon. In the old days I had a stable full of trusty steeds that could do it, but I sold them all off a long time ago. Now we'll have to improvise." She grinned, showing off yellow teeth, the dull color not too far off of Azazel's eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean? I can't ride a horse," Dean said suspiciously. His only memory of a horse involved riding lessons in some lame ass rich bastard high school his dad wanted him to go undercover in. That fucker had it in for him, wasn't even sure if it would rather bite his face off or throw him and stomp him into the dust.

"Not a horse. Those are too conspicuous these days anyway." Grandma got up and walked over to the window, nodding down into the parking lot. The Impala was under a tree, gleaming black and sweet in the sunlight. "Something better. A steed that already loves you and just needs the power to take you where you need to go."

"Wait," Dean said, hands out in protest. "Wait, you think I'm going to let you do something to my _car_?" He shot a quick glance out the window, as if to reassure himself his baby was still there and intact.

Grandma just smirked and pulled a bag out of a little box that looked like it might be made of ivory or it might just be polished bone. "No, Dean. You're going to do something to your car. It won't be so bad, either. You may actually like it."

She had nasty, beady eyes and when she leaned close to press the bag into his hands, Dean could have sworn her breath smelled like rotgut alcohol. "Why should I believe you?" he muttered.

She showed off her teeth. "Because your other choices are a demoness who'd as soon kill you as look at you if it helped Campbell, a God who doesn't give a damn or to sit back and watch your brother-lover rot in hell." She breathed more vodka breath at Dean. "He won't stay in hell either, not once Azazel breaks him and you won't like what comes out."

"Fine," Dean mumbled and shoved the back into his pocket. "What do I have to do?"

"Sprinkle it on your car and tell her where to take you," Grandma said. "It's simple enough, I think you could manage it. Between that and your mother's blessing, even an idiot like you could do what you have to. Now go."

"What?"

"I said go. Your prattling irritates me and boys who irritate me end up old before their time." She made a shooing gestured and tapped her foot against the carpet. It shouldn't have made a sound, but it did, loud and clicking.

Dean went.

The Impala looked bright under the sunlight, like she'd just had a good wax when in reality she was kind of overdue. Dean sucked in his lower lip and brushed a hand over her hood. She felt warm and ready underneath his palm, like a real girl.

"God, I hope this works, baby," he mumbled. "Let's go and get Sam one more time." Last time.

The bag old Grandma had given him looked like nothing, grass and dust and some stinky shit Dean didn't recognize, but what the hell, right? He opened it up and let it scatter over the Impala's hood.

For a long moment nothing at all happened and he was ready to turn around and march back inside and do whatever it took to make her help him get Sam back. It was just a second though, and then his baby made a sound, half way between an engine growl and the whiny of a horse, eager and sweet.

The driver's side door popped open, swinging wide, barely missing the ugly ass Hummer parked next to her. Dean swallowed hard and shook his head, but then he climbed inside. The door swung closed after him without him touching it and the engine revved, hard and ready.

"So, uh," Dean muttered, his voice cracking on the sound. The Impala gave a sweet little purr he could have sworn was reassurance and he coughed and managed to speak again. "So. They tell me Sam's in hell and the only people with the guts to go after him are you and me. What do you say, baby?"

The engine hissed like she was laughing and then she slid into reverse, and out of the lot, so fast and smooth Dean was thrown back in his seat, grabbing for the belt.

Dean couldn't have said how long they were on the road before the landscape started to change. The roads got cracks in them, potholes wide enough for a tree to grow through, but nothing did. The houses changed from normal to crumbled like a nuke or a quake had hit and shook them to their frames. The air started to shift from normal small town gasoline and grass to something tainted with rotten eggs, like sulphur.

Dean wouldn't have been able to pick the moment where they'd stopped being in Central Pennsylvania and started driving through hell, but he knew for sure that was where they were when the demon bird things swooped in after them, divebombing the Impala's roof. He winced, figuring they were both goners, but she just revved her engine harder and the bird things ended up crashing and kissing the cracked pavement in their wake.

A while later, he never could have said how long of a while, the road changed from pavement to gravel and then to dirt. The Impala shuddered at first, her shocks bouncing under the strain, but before long she shifted too. Just like that, Dean was riding a horse, black and sweet, all motion and muscle underneath him and as fast as his car had ever been.

His hand shook when he reached out to grasp her mane, stroking it with his palms, but she just ran and he leaned into her like a guy who'd been riding all of his life. "Come on, baby," he urged and she whinnied underneath him, trumpeting like she was proud of him.

When they came to a castle on a hill he expected her to stop, for them to have to go on foot and find Sam. He didn't exactly want to. Fuck no, not when the place stank of decay and the moat seemed to be made of some viscous substance that smelled like the insides of someone's guts and made him flash back hard on what it felt like to have his own slashed open. She didn't stop, though, she kept going, kicking hard and jumping the gates, clearing ten feet of wrought iron like it was the fucking Olympics and she was going for the gold.

Her flanks were sweaty against his thighs but she wasn't even panting hard when she kicked her way through the people-- demons-- whatever they were-- that populated the courtyard. Dean had no clue how he managed to stay on her back through it all, but he figured it had something to do with her wanting him there. And still they ran.

Up the stairs and through the halls, scattered with bones that had to be human and crunched under her hooves. Dean squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them again she was kicking in a door and behind it there was Sam. He wasn't in a cage this time. It was worse, a lot worse.

Sam hanging there in chains, bare skin slicked with blood and vomit that had to be his. There was a gag over Sam's mouth, spreading his lips apart and cutting into skin visibly. It made Dean want to choke, but he couldn't because it was Sam.

His mouth felt dry, cracked and he couldn't have spoken to save his life. Sam was there and Sam just stared at him, wide eyed. His Sam. He didn't look anything like okay, naked as the day he was born and visibly bruised and torn up, but Dean didn't give a fuck. He slid off the Impala and his knees knocked together he was shaking so hard.

"Sammy," he finally whispered when he closed his hands over Sam's skin. "Hey. We really gotta stop meeting like this". His hands were trembling enough that it took him what felt like forever to fumble the gag off Sam's mouth and then he had to wait through the coughing fit while he tried to deal with the wrist and ankle cuffs.

These cuffs were better built than anything Dean had ever dealt with before-- like they were made of titanium, unbreakable. He hissed in concentration and he hadn't gotten anywhere by the time Sam spoke. "You fucking nutcase," Sam hissed and when Dean looked up his eyes were blazing. "Does a guy have to eat your heart to get rid of you?"

"Hey, Sam," Dean repeated, like Sam hadn't said a word, and leaned down to press a quick kiss against Sam's chain wrists, feeling the skin shake under his mouth.

Sam's voice when it came again was soft, almost shattered sounding. "I can't believe you're not dead. I thought you were dead, I saw you die, I had to _see_, " he mumbled. "What are you doing here?"

Dean grinned through gritted teeth while he kept at the lock. "I'm here to get you, what do you think? Except, this time, I have help." He nodded behind himself to the Impala. He could almost see Sam's eyes focus and narrow like he was seeing her for the very first time.

"Holy fuck," Sam whispered and the cracked into another coughing fit, harsh and fierce enough to make Dean want to check to make sure his lungs were intact.

"I'm getting you out of here, hang on," he whispered in what he hoped was a reassuring tone.

"I don't wanna see you die again," Sam mumbled, his head lolling down against his chest like he was suddenly too worn out from coughing or whatever to hold it up straight. "Dean. I'm serious, Ruby may have been in time last time, but here--"

"Yeah, me too. I mean, I sure as fuck don't want to die," Dean said absently. "Come on, motherfucker," he urged the lock, but the damned thing refused to budge. He was about to scream at it like that would help when he felt the wicker of a horse's nose against his shoulder. He turned around and there the Impala was, looking at him with huge, liquid eyes and an expression that looked as close to mischievous as a horse face could get.

"What is it, baby?" he murmured, leaning back to stroke her nose. She shuffled forward, one step, two, until she was almost on top of Sam, and then her tail flicked forward. One cut, two. Three.

Sam's chains flicked off his wrists and ankles and clattered to the floor like she'd cut through them with a welding torch. Dean stared open mouthed for one flat second and then he threw his arms around her neck, hugging her hard. "Baby, you're a fucking miracle worker," he said.

Sam stumbled forward, barely catching himself on her side and clinging like it was the only thing keeping him upright. Dean shifted one arm free to pull him in and hold him just as hard.

"It'll take a miracle," Sam whispered. "A miracle worker. For us to get out of here."

"Yeah. Well... trust me, okay?" Dean said but Sam just looked at him and shook his head.

"I don't think you get it," Sam said. There were dark stress lines in his face, showing what he'd look like if he ever had the chance to get old. "I had to watch you suffer. I had to watch you die and I don't even understand. Why would you do that for me again?"

All Dean could was shake his head and tug Sam closer, closer, push Sam's head down against his shoulder and press his face into the hollow of Sam's collarbone, breathing him in. "I don't know. Why would you go to hell for me, Sam? You're my brother," he said, like that was it at all. Like he would ever really think brother when he looked at Sam, ever see that long lost giggling baby and not a man, tall and perfect with a hungry mouth and a cock that fit against Dean exactly right.

Sam snorted like he knew what Dean was thinking. "Is that what I am?" he murmured.

"You know what you are. You're Sam," Dean huffed into his skin and then tilted over to kiss him on the top of his head, ignoring the stink of sweat and pain. "You're Sam and you're mine and I've got you, and not only that, I've also got a fucking awesome horse that can outrun anything and the blessing of fucking Baba Yaga and Ruby gave me a knife to give you when you're strong enough to hold it. Sound good? So let's get the fuck out of here before Azazel shows up, okay?"

"Ruby did? Really?" Sam laughed into Dean's hair and it sounded hoarse and awful, but good.

"Yes. So, can we go?" Dean urged and Sam just laughed harder like an idiot.

"Yeah, you're going have to let go of me so I can climb on, okay?"

Dean could feel the heat on his skin when he blushed, because, yeah, okay, he'd been clinging a little hard. He pulled off of Sam, but he didn't let go of his hand. Had to hold on anyway, because the Impala was pretty fucking tall in horse form and Sam was shaky as hell and needed the hand up. He winced when his bare ass hit the saddle and Dean winced in sympathy but there was nothing he could do but slide his jacket off and drape it over Sam's body before climbing in behind him.

"Come on, baby," he crooned, taking the Impala's reins like a guy that knew what he was doing. "Let's blow this shit hole." Lucky for him, Dean might not have had a clue about horses but she definitely had a clue about him, so it worked out okay. All he had to do was wrap his arms around Sam's waist, careful of the bruises, and hold on tight while she pounded their way out of hell like her tail was on fire and she wanted to use it to light up the world.

He didn't know how long they rode, nothing but the sound of hooves on the ground and stench of rot and decay like a living thing. He couldn't have said when the stink got stronger, more physical and real. Like something vicious breathing down the back of his neck.

"Azazel," Sam whispered into his ear. "He's coming for us. Can't you smell him?"

Dean shuddered and nodded his head, curling up against Sam's shoulder. "Hurry, baby," he urged the Impala with his knees and she ran, eating up ground faster than she ever had as a car, or maybe it just felt like that with the wind whistling in Dean's ear.

If the sulphur stink of Azazel didn't get any further away it didn't get closer either. They ran until there suddenly wasn't any room to run further.

If there had been a gate to get into hell, Dean didn't remember crossing it on the way in, but it was definitely there on the way out. Thick and black, it looked like it was made of some smooth, polished metal, like something from a cyberpunk novel. Taller than anything he'd ever seen-- too solid to batter down quickly, too slick to climb. Sam laughed into his hands, sounding tired and sick and it made Dean's guts twist to hear him like that.

"Dead end," he muttered. "Awesome."

"No one's dying, Sammy," Dean hissed back, but if Sam heard him it didn't make him stop. Dean wanted to shake him, but he didn't. Instead he rubbed his forehead and tried to think. Fuck, he had to think.

Mother's blessing. Dean's mom, who'd laughed and tickled his cheeks with her long, blonde hair. Sam's mom, who'd fought and protected and died in the dark. It didn't get darker than this. "Mom," he whispered. "This crazy old witch said you might help us out here. How about you prove us not so crazy?"

He didn't know what he expected. Maybe nothing. Maybe just to die. But then Sam's body twitched against his, Sam's head jerking up and staring at something in front of them. "Mom," Sam said. "Mommy."

There was something-- Dean couldn't really make it out, just a blur of light. A voice he remembered. Strong and steady, going to keep all the monsters at bay. "I remember you. Do you remember me? Let my boys out, or I'll shake you to your foundations," she said.

For a long, brutal second, nothing happened at all. Then she stomped her foot against the ground and it moved beneath her like it had always been unstable. The walls shuddered and quaked and from somewhere far away Dean heard a deep, rumbling scream.

"Mom," he heard himself say, leaning against Sam as if that was the only stability there was. She turned and she looked at him. She just looked, just smiled. Reached out her hand as if she was close enough to touch, to caress his cheek.

"Dean," she said and a moment later, "Sam. Forgive me, if you can."

Sam nodded once, sharply against Dean's shoulder, but she seemed to see. She smiled in return and then turned back to the wall.

"Let my boys out," she said. "Or there will be nothing here but dust and the souls you've trapped here will come screaming forth into the dark." She stamped her foot again and it sounded like bone crunched under the soles of her boots.

She might not even have been real, she could as easily have been one of Baba Yaga's spells as his Mom, but Sam thought she was Mom too. The truth was that Dean would never know, would only remember the way she smiled.

The way he saw the gates of hell shudder and tremble and move under her orders. They didn't open wide, but wide enough for two guys on a horse to duck underneath and run, Azazel still safely behind them.

After the gate, Dean lost track of time, lost track of everything that wasn't Sam, pressed against his chest, warm and alive where nothing else was. He barely knew what was happening until that gravel and dirt path resolved itself into pavement again and the hooves clattering on the ground were suddenly wheels driven by an engine faster than any engine had a right to push, even his baby. He was sitting on the driver's side, Sam next to him, fingers interlaced together and holding on tight.

It was full dark by the time there was grass again and the world smelled like life instead of sulphur and rotten flesh. Even darker when the Impala pulled herself over onto a field off the road, all clover and fireflies. It couldn't help but remind Dean of the futility of that church parking lot what seemed like forever ago and must have been, what? Days?

This was different though, this time he had Sam gripping his hand. Sam who let his head rest on Dean's shoulder like it was comfortable there.

"He's going to come for us again," Sam said. "If we stop long enough. You can't outrun a greater demon forever even in car with Baba Yaga's fingerprints all over her."

Dean shuddered, remembering the last time he'd been face to face with Azazel. The knives. And Sam, the way Sam had looked at him. Never again, but... but still. "Didn't you bind him? While I was... dying. Bind him to hell?"

Sam shook his head, rough, unwashed hair sliding over Dean's skin. Dean curled his fingers in that hair, clutching Sam tight. "He can't come back in a human body, at least as long as the binding holds," he said. "Doesn't mean he can't come back."

He kissed Sam again, on the mouth, full and sweet, trying not to bruise damaged flesh any further. Sam wouldn't let it go at that though. The taste of him should have been terrible, sickening, like vomit and hell, but if it was like that Dean hardly noticed or cared. All that mattered was the way this felt, the heavy weight of Sam, real and alive and back with him. Sam dove into it, tongue and teeth, like all he wanted was to swallow Dean whole and Dean pushed back against him.

It felt like a long time before they pulled apart, breathless again. "Doesn't matter if he does crawl out of the pit, this time we're ready for him. I told you, Ruby made another knife for you." Dean pulled it out of his holster and pressed it into Sam's hands. The hilt gleamed dully in the moonlight. "She said it would only work for you. That it would be yours."

Sam took it, slow and reverent, his fingertips dancing over the blade. It had balanced well in Dean's hand, but in Sam's it seemed to curl up and slot in like it was shaped around him. Probably it was. Sam smiled, full and sweet, teeth gleaming in the moonlight and reflecting in the blade. "Just for me, huh?" he murmured.

Then, as carefully as he'd taken it, he lay the knife aside, if still within arms reach. "I think something else here is for me. Come on, more room in the backseat."

"Sam?" Dean asked, but Sam was already grabbing him by the neck of his t-shirt and scrambling awkwardly over the seats and into the back. There wasn't really enough space for a guy as big as him and Dean could actually see him wince, but he made it. He made it and Dean came after him til they were both sprawled out together in the narrow confines of the back seat.

"Come on," Sam urged, tugging at the belt of Dean's jeans. He was still mostly bare himself, just Dean's leather jacket clinging to him while he straddled Dean's lap like there was way more room than there should have been in the backseat. "If this is the last time before we have to deal with Azazel again or... whatever, I'm going to fucking enjoy it."

"You, now... but, are you hurt?" Dean muttered, like it wasn't hard to worry about that with Sam writhing in his lap, trying to get at his dick like it was the best thing ever. But... Sam still stank of sulphur, blood and sickness and Dean didn't want to know what Azazel had done to him. Could have done to him.

Sam just shook his head and threw Dean's belt over his shoulder. "Fuck that," he hissed. "I've been hurt worse."

"Azazel--" Dean didn't even know what he was trying to say, but Sam seemed to. Sam who pressed forward, his torn mouth moving against Dean's until all Dean could taste was blood and spit.

"Fuck Azazel," Sam growled into his ear when he'd left Dean panting and loose. "He doesn't get to beat me-- us anymore. He doesn't get to win. Or is something else bothering you?"

"No, nothing else," Dean whispered, because what could he do but agree with that? And then Sam was on him, sharp angle of hips and elbows jabbing hard and close, sweet arc of spine and skin, that curve of ass under his palms.

There wasn't space for anything other than just that, Sam riding him, himself arching up against Sam, tight motions and the feel of his cock sliding up and down in the slick hollow space of Sam's hip. The noises Sam made, soft and frantic and the desperate curl of his hands on Dean's shoulders, holding on so hard he could feel the bruises rise up.

He came hard and furious as the rest of it and it wasn't long before Sam collapsed on top of him, dead weight and panting breaths, too much like he'd been when Dean had shot him with a magazine full of rocksalt and tried to drag him away.

This was different though. The looseness was relaxation and Sam had a smile on his face, bright and sweet and far too knowing. "Hey," Sam whispered into his ear, the lazy sweetness slipping into his voice like a purr. "That was good."

Dean laughed. "Gimme some time and an actual bed and I'll show you good."

Sam made a sound and tucked his chin down against Dean's chest. "So, we're definitely going to keep doing this?" he asked after a long moment of silence. "Even though... you know. Brothers thing?"

"You don't feel like my brother," Dean admitted softly without thinking about it too much. It was a lie and he knew it even when he said it. Sam was that too, he was just more than that. He fit against Dean. This fit. "You feel like... like mine. That's all."

Sam sighed and then yawned heavily. "Works for me," he said after a little pause of his own, like he was taking his own moment to think it through.

Dean didn't know how long he rested there, curled up close with Sam on top of him like a living blanket, sticky and wretched smelling, which was never going to matter. Breathing and his, which was the only thing that ever really could matter.

It must have been hours, because the sun started to peek out and make him squint. Sam looked even worse in the full daylight, greenish and bloody, bruised eyes that might have been exhaustion or might have been something worse. There were fingerprints on him and Dean could tell most of them weren't from his hands or from any human hand at all.

Sam smiled at him despite that. "You look like shit," Sam said, like Dean was the one who got worked over by a demon. Which... yeah, okay, there was that, but he'd been healed since then and Sam hadn't, so whatever. He frowned.

"You look shittier than I do," he pointed out. "Also, you stink like you took a rotten egg bath."

Sam stared at him for a second, mouth open. Then he covered his face with his hands and laughed, bright and crazy, edging into hysteria but not quite on that line. "Fuck you, Dean. We could get a motel room so I could take a real bath," he offered once he got his breathing under control.

"We could," Dean agreed, but he didn't move and neither did Sam. A motel would mean leaving the car. Leaving the car would mean they wouldn't have her around them if... if Azazel. If it came back too soon, while Sam was messed up and torn up, and probably could barely stand, never mind take down a demon with a knife.

"We could drive for a while first," Sam offered after what had to have been five full minutes of no one saying anything and no one moving. "Find somewhere that looked safe." When Dean stared at him he made a shrugging gesture. "I don't think it will be that easy for him to get out of hell after the way I bound him. I think we have... we have time."

"Yeah. Okay," Dean mumbled and didn't moan with the loss when Sam slipped off him and climbed back into the front. "A shower," Dean said. "A shower and a fucking cheeseburger. Like, five of them would be even better."

It made him feel surprisingly warm when Sam laughed beside him.

It seemed like forever until the phone rang. Dean stared at it like it was an alien and Sam stared at him.

"What?" he finally asked. "Dean, what?"

Dean shook his head and picked up the phone. "Hey," he said, in a voice he was proud didn't shake at all. "Hi Dad. Remember that explanation you owe me? I've got someone else here with me you might owe it to also."

/

Epilogue

Azazel caught up with them on a Sunday when it was full summer and Sam's bruises had faded into something as greenish brown as his favorite t-shirts. They were on the open road and Dean was watching Sam fiddle with the tape deck and trying not to glare when he fed it whatever bullshit he'd decided was funny this week.

It was actually kind of easy not to glare when Sam was grinning, wide open and sunny, like he did on his good days and just about daring Dean to say a word.

Later, Dean figured out that the Impala must have caught the scent of demon before he or Sam had even noticed the cloud over the sun. She sped up without his foot on the gas pedal, revving hard and furious like an angry Valkyrie, almost knocking Dean out the seat.

"What the--" he managed to say, and then he saw it. It, the only word for it was an it. A thing, with black, torn up wings and a gaping toothless mouth, like someone had beaten all the teeth out of it. Thin as a rail and cadaverous. Leathery skin hanging loose.

It was like an image from some medieval manuscript warning all good Christians about the pit. The sulphur stink of it made Dean gag.

It swooped down to meet them and Dean's foot was on the brake, but his baby ignored the signal and just went faster, hurtling toward the demon at psychotic speeds. When she rammed it the impact almost sent Dean flying, like they'd hit a deer. He didn't even realize the glass hadn't so much as cracked at first, the hood wasn't even dented. Not until he pulled his hands off his face and saw.

She'd stopped them at the side of the road and that thing, the thing he didn't quite recognize but knew anyway, it was laying sprawled out and broken looking over the railing.

"Sam," Dean whispered, but Sam was already unbuckling his seatbelt, his jaw set tight and furious. Dean tried to reach for him but Sam ducked out of his grip and the door swung open for him without him touching it. Dean's own side was stuck though, like it was blocked off by something. When he tried to open the lock it just popped back closed. "Damnit, baby, why'd you let him do that and not me?" Dean hissed at the dashboard, but the engine was almost silent, in park. "Let me out."

Instead of getting out, he had to watch. Fuck, he was so tired of watching. Watching Sam, watching Mom. Watching and never getting to stand between them and what was out to hurt them. If this was what made Dad crack in the end, Dean couldn't blame him.

Sam on his feet, tall and steady, the gleam of something burning in his hazel-green eyes. The demon thing, broken wings fluttering. "You don't get to have me," Sam said. "Why can't you figure that the fuck out?" If Azazel said something back, Dean couldn't make out what it was. Just rumbles, low and deep, sending shudders of wrong down under his skin.

Sam had the knife in his hand, Ruby's knife, gleaming in the sun. It moved so fast it was like a living thing, an extension of Sam's arm, aiming sweet and true. He cut with it, surgical and smooth, like the way they described serial killers in books.

Dean watched, mouth hanging open and body tight and ready as he'd been that first time he'd seen Sam take down a demon. Watched him cut. Watched it die. He'd never wanted anything more than he wanted Sam, the grace of him, the absolute relentlessness.

Sam leaned over Azazel's body and pull something free before he looked up and back at Dean. There was a smile on his face, brighter and fiercer than the sun and it made Dean swallow hard. The driver's side door finally swung open, freeing him, and he stumbled out into the warm summer day and the already fading smell of sulphur and demon blood.

Sam walked up toward him, something wet and messy in his hands and Dean had to stare at it for a moment to recognize it for what it was. A heart, half shriveled, but still pulsing in Sam's hands like a living thing.

"Dude," he hissed and whistled too loud. "Holy fuck. How do you actually kill that thing?"

Sam grinned at him. It was so bright all Dean wanted was to kiss him, bloody hands full of demon heart and all, but he resisted the urge. "I have a pretty good idea. You got a light?"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know you smoked," he said, but he was getting the idea already. He fumbled in his pocket for his favorite lighter and held it up to the dried out parts of the thing beating between Sam's hands.

It took the better part of a minute before it started to smoke and then just seconds before it caught. Sam didn't drop it until Dean grabbed him by the wrists. "Dude," he hissed. "You'll burn your hands."

It splattered on the pavement, a wet sound despite the flames. It kept burning anyway. Burning and burning while they both watched until there was nothing but ash.


End file.
